Wednesday, June 03, 2009

In the Key to the Whole Game, I suggested that the Island is a place where the laws of quantum mechanics apply at a macroscopic scale. Like Doc Jensen at EW.com, I believe this makes the Island a source of miraculous Black Swan events that change what's "supposed" to happen against all odds. So far, we've witnessed two such miracles, and I'm guessing we'll see a third before the show is done. These three Black Swans are integral to Jacob's plan to save us all.

The Valenzetti Equation. Before going further, let me clarify one important piece of mythology you may not have picked up from the show -- the Valenzetti Equation. Here's all you need to know courtesy of Team Darlton themselves from a 2009 interview with E-Online:

The Hanso Foundation that started the Dharma Initiative hired this guy Valenzetti to basically work on this equation to determine what was the probability of the world ending in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Valenzetti basically deduced that it was 100 percent within the next 27 years, so the Hanso Foundation started the Dharma Initiative in an effort to try to change the variables in the equation so that mankind wouldn't wipe it itself out.

The Valenzetti is a mathematical expression of our destiny as a species. When someone saves the world on Lost, they do so against the dictates of fate. The universe then course corrects, resetting the doomsday clock. That's what the Man in Black and Jacob debate with the Black Rock off in the distance. Since ancient times, Jacob has brought people to the Island to create Black Swan events that postpone our extinction -- an exercise the Man in Black finds futile. None of what we've seen was supposed to happen, but all of it must or "God help us all."

Black Swan 1: The Incident. The first miracle is the one just depicted in the Season 5 finale. DHARMA was supposed to cause an extinction-level event by drilling at the Swan site, but our Losties changed that by causing the Incident instead. Daniel was right that Ms. Hawking lied about this being their destiny. They're "variables" precisely because the Incident wasn't supposed to happen, so "whatever happened, happened" doesn't apply. Eloise's lie was a noble one meant to preserve the fragile time loop in which our Losties save the world.

That's also why Jacob touches several key players in the Incident at pivotal moments in their lives. Because this isn't their destiny, he can't simply depend on course correction to get them where they need to be. Maybe the best example is when Jacob gives the pen to little James. If the latter doesn't finish that letter, chase the real Sawyer to Australia, crash on the Island, travel back in time, and pull a Han Solo, the assault by Jack and Co. on the Swan site most likely fails. The world ends right there in 1977.

Black Swan 2: The Fail-Safe. The second event is also one we've already seen. The Incident merely reset the countdown to catastrophe. The Swan button protocol was supposed to finish the job, but Desmond saved the world in defiance of the Valenzetti by activating the Fail-Safe. The catch is that, like the Incident, none of this was supposed to happen. When Desmond traveled back in time, he too was a variable who could have changed things despite the rule of "whatever happened, happened." Don't you dare rewrite history, Desmond!

That's why Ms. Hawking intervenes to prevent Desmond from proposing to Penny. As with our Losties, Eloise lies when she implies it's his destiny to go to the Island. Here again, however, her lie is a noble one meant to preserve the miraculous timeline in which the world is saved. If Des doesn't choose to go to the Island, press the button, and turn the key, then as Ms. Hawking says, every single one of us is dead. The Swan implosion sucks up everything on Earth, ending the world in 2004. As Jon G notes, that's exactly 27 years after the Incident.

Here's the really hellish part. Ms. Hawking realizes that Black Swans 1 and 2 are inextricably linked by the time loop we've witnessed -- it's all one big predestination paradox. Our Losties can't cause the Incident in 1977 unless Desmond turns the key in 2004, and vice versa. Eloise, moreover, only knows about these events because of Daniel's notebook. That's why she sends Daniel to the Island despite knowing he will die at her own hands. Ms. Hawking sacrifices her only son to complete the causal loop that saves the world.

The Man in Black's Loophole. The Man in Black knows this loop is necessary and cynically exploits it to his advantage. He uses the Smoke Monster to make a copy of Christian's body, then tricks Claire into helping him enter the Cabin. This allows the Man in Black to claim to speak for Jacob when Locke arrives looking for help. The Man in Black instructs Locke to move the Island, but omits crucial information on how to do so. When Ben turns the Wheel off its axis, the Man in Black uses the resulting time skips to get Locke off the Island and plant the notion that he must die.

All of this is the Man in Black's plan to to create the Loophole that enables him to kill Jacob. I think the rules of their game are simple. Neither player can kill the other -- the Man in Black must persuade someone else to do the deed. Jacob's death, moreover, must take place inside the Foot, where only his Chosen Ones can enter -- notice how even Richard stops at the door. That's why the Man in Black goes to such elaborate lengths to obtain Locke's corpse. The Man in Black needs to copy the body so he can enter Foot as Locke and incite Ben to murder.

It's so diabolical when you think about it. The Man in Black knows that, even if Jacob and Eloise discover his plot, they can't stop him for fear of disrupting the delicate chain of events leading to the Incident and Fail-Safe. So confident is the Man in Black that, as Zombie Christian, he actually directs Locke to find Eloise knowing she has to send Locke's body back to the Island with the Oceanic 6 to ensure they end up in the past. What the Man in Black fails to realize is that Jacob has been running his own long con to create Black Swan number three.

Black Swan 3: The Omega Point. The third miracle is one we're about to see. If I'm right about the Valenzetti, the Fail-Safe simply delayed our extinction until no later than 2031. Jacob hopes to end this vicious cycle for good by creating the Omega Point. The term was coined by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe a global collective consciousness that he believed we're evolving towards as a species. The concept is quite simiar to the new-age Gnostic notion of the Supermind that I described in 108: Restoring the Lost Sun.

The clue to Jacob's objective is the book he reads while Locke falls in the background. Everything That Rises Must Converge is a collection of short stories by Flannery O'Connor, who took the title from Teilhard's description of the Omega Point. Ironically, O'Connor's stories feature characters who exhibit the sort of bias and prejudice that the Omega Point aspires to overcome. The book works well as a metaphor for Jacob's plan to permanently cure what the Man in Black described as humanity's tendancy to fight, destroy, and corrupt.

Before that can happen, however, both Jacob and the Man in Black must die. The Island is a Vast Active Living Intelligence System that regulates our biosphere -- basically, the brain of the world. Like the human brain, it has right and left sides that should work together as a unified whole. Unfortunately, some ancient trauma gave the Island what amounts to Dissociative Identity Disorder, creating two opposing personalities, light and dark. Jacob and the Man in Black aren't supposed to be perpetual adversaries. Their division prevents our evolution as a species.

The only solution is to wipe the planetary brain clean and start from tabula rasa. The Man in Black believes the murderous Loophole is all his idea. But Jacob sees it coming a mile away and uses the Loophole to make both of their deaths a fait accompli. He manipulates the Man in Black into assuming Locke's physical form, which leaves the latter vulnerable to being killed. As Locke, moreover, the Man in Black has publicly declared his desire to kill the Others' beloved leader. No wonder he doesn't seem particularly triumphant upon kicking Jacob's body into the fire.

When Jacob and the Man in Black are dead, two new avatars must take their place. To heal the Island's division, however, they must transcend the opposition of light and dark. For this reason, I believe Jacob and the Man in Black's replacements will be a man and woman in love. My inspiration here is Aristophanes's account of love in Plato's Symposium. Once, according to Aristophanes, human beings were round creatures with two heads. Fearing our strength, the gods split human bodies in two. Love is the desire to make yourself whole again by finding your other half. Kind of like the Yin-Yang.

I'm guessing, moreover, that the happy couple will be two children of the Island we've already met. One half is Aaron, who was conceived off the Island but born on it. The other is Ji-Yeon, who was conceived on the Island but born off it. Remember what Sun tells little Ji-Yeon on the phone? "I met a new friend for you in America. His name is Aaron." I believe that East will eventually meet West and fall in love. Everything that rises must converge on a Lost wedding between Aaron and Ji-Yeon before 2031. Our survival as a species depends on it...

As always, you're welcome to post anonymously, but please identify yourself somehow, so I can distinguish between anonymous posters. Thanks!

412
comments:

This theory is actually quite brilliant. If what your saying is true and it definitely has the ring of Lost logic they are going to have to address The Valenzetti Equation in the final season because it hasn't been revealed during the show and ONLY what is in the show is cannon. Your theory also neatly uses Jensen's idea of the relation of season 5 and season 2 with The Incident happening in 5 and the fail safe in 2. Also, your use of Hostager's idea of The Omega Point in Lost fits quite nicely. One thing I question and it is very small is that jacob's death has to happen in the foot. The Man in Black didn't seem to know where Jacob was because he had to be taken there by Richard. That is neither here nor there in relevance to the logic of your theory. Damon and Carlton said shortly before the Finale that we would have all the info we would need to "solve" the show after viewing the Finale and the first episode of season 6 so we will have a pretty good idea if your on the right track in January.

Good theory.A few questions:-- How did Claire help get MiB into the cabin?-- Was Jacob in corporeal form all this time, just chilling in the foot for hundreds of years? What about MiB? Who said "Help me" to Locke?-- How did the failsafe key prevent the full-scale meltdown, exactly? Why wouldn't Dharma have just turned it earlier?

Whoa man, that was a totally awesome read!! It was like you took all the brainstorming being done in the comments section and put it all into a nice, neat package--with plenty of completely new ideas all your own. Great stuff!!

I especially had to smack myself on the head with your theory that Claire was the one who helped MIB (disguised as Christian) to access Horace's cabin. I assume you mean that Claire was the one who broke the ash circle. When I read that, I was like, "Oh, DUH!!" Because the first time we see Christian in that cabin is when Claire is with him. That would most likely mean that Claire is still alive. Although I still wonder why Miles was looking at her funny (might have been to throw off viewers).

I also still wonder who it was who asked Locke to help him. Was that actually Jacob asking for help, similar to how he asked Ilana for help? The temper tantrum thrown by that entity (along with the pleading way he asked for help) seems unlike the calm and serene Jacob we saw in the finale. Perhaps it was someone that Jacob was protecting from the Smoke Monster.

In regard to Aaron and Ji Yeon ending up together and your reasons why, I think you're starting to convince me. Perhaps in the same way that Claire's spirit was supposed to have an influence on Aaron's upbringing (per Malkin's instructions to her), Sun and Jin are the loving couple who raise Ji Yeon and influence her in a positive way as she grows up. In the Bible, Aaron was the first high priest of the Hebrews. He was always overshadowed by Moses, but he was nonetheless very important. Ji Yeon means "lotus flower of wisdom". Many religious figures are known to be sitting upon the lotus. Perhaps together Aaron and Ji Yeon will be wise and enlightened high priests to the rest of the world, being sent by the Island (aka VALIS, good stuff there) to help the rest of the world on its way to the Omega Point.

Whenever I've seen a story that attempts to deal with something like the Omega Point, it never actually shows it taking place. The story usually ends on a hopeful note that humanity will one day reach it. I think this is due to the reluctance of writers to try to show what the Omega Point would look like for fear of it being disappointing or anticlimactic. It's arguably better to simply refer to the concept in theory and leave it up to the viewer (each one having his or her own notions of heaven or nirvana) to decide what it would look like. That's how I suspect the show will end. Either that, or the ending will be similar to the movie The Ninth Gate with Johnny Depp (which I saw recently, so it's fresh in my mind), where at the end Depp's character walks through the ninth gate as light coming from the other side of the gate eventually fills the whole screen. We can understand that Depp's character has moved to the next level without actually being shown what that looks like.

But anyway, I just want to say once again how thoroughly I enjoyed your post. I will have to read it more than once (hey, just like a DHARMA Orientation film) so I don't miss anything. I look forward to reading the aftermath of this one in the comments section!

Bigmouth, I had a thought while reading your post, but forgot to mention it earlier. I was thinking about how MIB says that things always end badly, with destruction and chaos. Up until now I've always assumed that this was a reference to cycles that have repeated themselves down through history, with the most recent cycle being shown on the TV show.

But what if that's not what's happening at all? What if the cycles are not next to each other on a single timeline, with each cycle lasting about 108 years or so? What if MIB is saying that history--ALL of earth's history--is repeating itself, each time ending with the destruction of the world because of events that transpire at the Island? When the destruction happens, Jacob recreates humanity to try it all over again. Instead of cycles being 108 years long, they are several thousand years long--encompassing all of recorded history.

Perhaps each time things repeat themselves, Jacob is learning along with humanity what works and what doesn't work. He is learning when to intervene and when not to. Man's free will is something that neither he nor MIB are able to supplant, but Jacob believes that with just the right combination of interventions on his part, the desired outcome will come about.

If this is true, then the Mobius loop we see happening is actually a cycle within a cycle. The thing that always happens in each meta-cycle (the world being destroyed) is being postponed because of the Mobius loop. MIB never knows exactly what Jacob will do (as evidenced by his lack of knowledge about the Black Rock), but he does know how the cycles have always ended. This has to be a huge reason why MIB is so jaded about humanity--because no matter how differently Jacob does things in each cycle or who he brings to the Island, the humans always act the same. To go along with what you said, perhaps Jacob has simply been waiting for MIB to get fed up and find a way to kill him so that the necessary events can take place that will ensure that mankind's destiny can take the final step on its path of evolution. Perhaps like the leader of the Others taking his place once his father is killed, humanity cannot progress to the next step until its father (Jacob) is killed. Ooo, that was all spiritual-sounding and stuff!

Big I REALLY like this post. I actually said WOW out loud when I was done reading.I really hope the LOST storyline is going down the path where destiny is ultimately changed so that all of humanity is saved. I'd love to see this show end with a hopeful message. All these characters came to the island lost in so many ways. I think it would be great to see how everything that has happened was ultimately so that they could literally save the world. I think I'll be disappointed if this show ends on a completely morbid note of the world having to end.Again awesome theories.

Hey, Big. You didn't fail on our waiting for the post. (Still love "No soup for you" last time around, I literally spit coffee on my screen.) Lots of jumbled thoughts here. First, amazing thoughts on Claire bringing MIB into the cabin. I'm starting to think that MIB was outside shaking the damn thing to scare Ben. The HELP MEEEE was the only truly out-of-synch voice effect I've heard on the show, I got nothin'. Unless it was MIB outside as Locke was near the door. (There are three cabins on the mural and Hurley saw version#2, will we see the third? This adds to your three black swans, is there something in the cabin's third manifestation that corresponds to a black swan event?) I still think MIB can inhabit living forms to an extent, allowing Locke to walk and Ben to get a tumor. I have no idea how we will see 2031 on the show, but I'll bet Aaron is the MIB this time. He was raised by both pure Claire, her mom (far as we know for the near future, at least), and bad Kate, but thennnn, we've seen how ruthless Sun can be. If 815 does land in LA (great line by Jack to James in the finale), there are many ways to explore what will lead to the Omega Point. (I think THE STAND is the best example for a near-extinction event, and if anyone hasn't read it yet, read the expanded version.)

It's hard to debate on how the show will end, because it will be more fun to experience the debates come January. If EVIL won in S5, is the war Widmore talks about between everyone who knew of the events on the Island going back MIB? What if the Omega Point is changed because of the loophole? It's not every 27 years, which would explain the conundrum of why 316 only went back in time a few months. Kate, Jack, and Hurley went to 1977 to start the Incident and get Chang to evacuate the Island, respectively. Perhaps Sun was needed as a type of Claire surrogate and Ilana's crew needed to be in 2007 to expose MIB with the evidence of two Locke's ASAP. With Jacob dead, is this the "God help us all" event? Is this why there's a war, to stop the end of the world from happening in 2010? Will we get a time jump to 2012 (like MAD MEN does, every season jumping fwd two years) to have the new Omega Point coincide with the Mayan prophecies? (Doubtful, but those Mayans were a crafy bunch.)

Also, there is a wild card where the rules don't apply. When talking about babies, don't forget Charlie Widmore Hume.

I just realized that there's a problem with saying that it was Claire who broke the ash circle, because Hurley saw Christian inside the cabin about a week before Claire disappeared with Christian. So here is a list of facts about the cabin that need to be explained in order to build a comprehensive theory about what it's all about.

1) The cabin appears to have been built by Horace Goodspeed.

2) The cabin appears to be able to change locations (not only evidenced by Hurley seeing it in a different location, but also when Locke finds the ash circle in The Economist, but the cabin is gone).

3) On the Season 3 DVD commentary by producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, the circle of ash is "a bit of a kind of protection or magic or kind of containment. Ben is afraid to touch it. In a certain way, part of the idea here is that Ben has some powers over Jacob, and Jacob has some powers over Ben, and there is a bit of a stasis."

4) Ben knew about the location of the cabin, although it is not revealed how he found out about it, nor why he thinks it's Jacob's home.

5) The cabin is not the home of Jacob, as we now know the foot of the statue of Taweret is his abode.

6) The first time we see the cabin is on 12/19/04, at night, and it's surrounded by the ash circle. Ben pretends to see Jacob, and Locke hears someone say "Help me". The cabin shakes profusely.

7) The second time we see the cabin is two days later on 12/21/04, at night, and it's not only in a different spot than the first time, but it appears to be able to move. There is no evidence of an ash circle. Christian Shephard and the eye of an unknown second person are seen inside.

8) The third time we see the location of the cabin is the next day on 12/22/04, during the daytime, but this time only the ash circle is there. Locke thought he would find it there, but Ben does not seem surprised that it isn't. It's unknown if Ben was genuinely not surprised that the cabin wasn't there or if he was just pretending to make it seem like he had all the answers.

9) The fourth time we see the cabin is a week later on 12/29/04, at night. This time to find it, Locke had to get Horace's map, indicating that they were going to its original location. It is assumed that this location is different from all its previous appearances. I don't recall whether or not the ash circle was seen.

10) The fifth time we see the cabin is sometime in 2007, during the daytime, when Ilana and her crew come across it. They appear to know exactly where it is, and are the first people to find it during the day. They are also the first people to find it uninhabited. They see that the ash circle has been broken. I don't remember if this spot corresponds to any of the other previous locations of the cabin.

Another thing I don't recall is whether or not the ash circle is always in the same spot on the Island, or if it can move like the cabin does. I couldn't find images from the three episodes that show the ash circle ("The Man Behind the Curtain", "The Economist" and "The Incident") to compare locations. Anyone have a clue on that?

Very nice thoughts Big! :-D I'm very glad to hear that TPTB have qualified, to some extent, the VE into the show, yay! We know that TLE and the show do overlap in some respects, but we've been down that road a zillion ways here already. The main connection between the two for me, is the blast door map. That is, whatever is on the BDM that's both in-game and in-show, is where they connect for me. Kind of like my Show-vs-TLE Rosetta Stone:-)

I forget when Daniel said that Mrs.H lied, can anyone refresh my memory? Tx.

Heheh, Aristophanes's idea sounds a lot like "The Dark Crystal", or actually vice versa (Urskeks divide in the Urru and Skeksis, and then re-unite).

My thoughts exactly Wayne, wondering about if 2012 will be in there somewhere. We've gotten almost everything but the kitchen sink and Mayans so far, so are Mayans to come? Altho, the X-Files did that to quickly wrap up their ending, so maybe the Lost PTBs won't go there. And you're right, I've also been wondering about how the third baby might fit in. Gee, if Ben had a living grandchild, it could be a Widmore descendant vs. a Ben descendant left to run the island!

Good points JG. Ben's problems with Jacob remind me a lot of Cain's problems with God. In some respects, Cain (simplistically) had an inferiority complex that caused jealousy and an improper attitude concerning his sacrifice, so God didn't accept it and Cain put all the fault on Abel. Ben's confrontational whining to Jacob before he killed him reminded me of that. Ben just didn't quite get it either. Altho, we might find out that there's more to Ben's "losing his innocence" that kept Jacob from getting close to Ben maybe. ??

The theory is gorgeous until you reach the Omega Point and start on about what is essentially an arranged marriage by the logic of "it has to happen to save humanity." I'm really not buying Ji-Yeon and Aaron as being all that important in the grand scheme of things. I could be wrong, but nothing else I've seen has given me any reason to think they're any more than basic plot devices.

Walt sure seemed freaky and important for a while there, didn't he? Now he uh... well he visited with Locke, which was heartwarming and all... but that's it.

Absolutely incredible theory. I hope you are on the money. Actually, what I wanted to say here was about the recent Air France plane crash. Horrible incident indeed, but was I the only one thinking "LOST" upon hearing a plane disappeared over the ocean and they think it broke apart in mid-air? Coincidence? My condolences to all the families, of course.

@lockerocks, a few people brought that up on the previous post. Sad story. When my dad was a cop, his squad was second on the scene after a plane missed Midway Airport by about seven blocks in December of 1972. The plane landed over four homes and garages and he got there just before the fuel tanks ignited. I hate flying, but when I do, I accept my fate more than at any other time. There's rarely more than one outcome, sadly.

@Jon G, I'm curious as to if there is a difference between the cabin during the day as there is at night. Maybe it's the lantern being lit (as down by the frozen wheel) that does something? There are three cabins on that Swan mural. As Capcom pointed out, along with what is on the Blast Door Map, there are plenty of clues on the that mural, going back to S2. I think the point that Big was making is that Claire went INSIDE the cabin, Hurley simply looked inside. And, Hurley being who he is, I doubt he would have gone into the cabin at all. Here's a thought, what if MIB moved the cabin/ash so that Hurley would see it and then brush the ash, therefore allowing Claire & Christian to go inside. Something is up with Claire, and maybe the ash circle had to be brushed aside by someone less creepified.

Big, I continue to be amazed at the information you throw at us in each post. Looking fwd to everyone's comments. Don't make my mistake, gang, when the comments reach 199, you need to click to see 200 and beyond.

Okay I have a question and a statement to anyone that wants to respond. If Claire helped MIB then are we assuming that she's still alive? I really feel like Claire is dead or in whatever half dead state you could be in on the island. I'm sure we've talked about this on earlier posts but I think she died the day Keamy's team blew up the cabin she was in. I rewatched a clip of the season 4 The Shape of Things to Come when everyone is hiding from Keamy at Ben's house. Claire has been rescued and this is the conversation from the transcripts.SAWYER: You all right, sweetheart? CLAIRE: Yeah, a bit wobbly, but, uh, I'll live. MILES: Well, I wouldn't be too sure about that.

I feel like at that point and then all through the jungle when Miles is staring at Claire that he knows she is dead or "mostly" dead or whatever. And I still don't believe if Claire was alive she'd just leave her baby even if her dead father came to visit. Plus she was so odd in that scene where Locke sees her in the cabin.

I too thought that it was extremely weird for Claire to leave Aaron, Christie. And I was also puzzled by her seemingly aloof or belligerent attitude in the cabin. I hope that TPTB don't just do a "Rose and Bernard", with her all of a sudden popping up somewhere. Altho, that solution did work well for the awol R&B, I liked how TPTB explained them like that!

Biggie, you've raised the bar. You could be the next American Idol. Whoops, wrong show. You know what I mean. What sound analysis. You're theory is completely plausible and even likely. I'm gonna see if I can get my 5 year old daugther to be one of the Ji Yeon's. :P Thanks!

@Christie, there's also the scenes where she mentions having a headache but it is going away, so that could mean Miles, if he didn't know she was dead, knew she was close to dying, if that makes sense. As in, Claire was for all intents dead, but MIB needed her to look to be dazed but alive so he could take her off to the cabin. So far, Big's suggestion that MIB needed her to allow him access to the cabin is the best I've heard, but, unlike him, I think she is dead. I've mentioned that MIB might be able to inhabit living bodies at times, well, he could appear as Christian AND Claire at the same time if Claire was so close to being dead that it took very little energy to expend himself.

Re: Claire and Aaron, I don't know that Aaron was a plot device--unless it was a misdirection which we kinda got with Walt--it seemed as if Claire's whole backstory revolved around her not letting him be raised by another, but I have kinda thought that Ji-Yeon has proved a plot device more than anything else. Just being devil's advocate there.

First, thanks to everyone for the kind words! I've been working on this one for a while and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

neoloki: I think you're right that we'll probably hear something about the Valenzetti Equation on the show. I hold out hope for a visit to Ann Arbor myself. Good point about Zombie Locke not knowing what the Foot was. Remember how Zombie Christian referred to Jack as "my son"? I get the sense there are two personalities inside the bodies the Man in Black copies, his own and the original. I'm guessing he pulls strings subconsciously for the most part, taking conscious control only in critical moments like Locke's visit to the Cabin and Jacob's murder in the Foot.

On that last point, I associate the Foot with the Loophole because Jacob suggests as much in the intro to the episode. I realize he could just be referring to his residence there. But I'm assuming, until Team Darlton says otherwise, that he spent at least some of his time in the Cabin. I got the vibe there's something more about the Foot, like it's a preset meeting spot once the Loophole has been found.

Aaron: I think something about Claire's goodness was the key to gaining entrance to the Cabin. It remains to be seen whether Jacob and the Man in Black are physical beings. That may be why Jacob's murder had to take place in the Foot -- it's someplace he can assume corporeal form. The Fail-Safe set off an electromagnetic pulse -- maybe nuclear, maybe non -- that fried the source of the Island's electromagnetism for good. DHARMA didn't do so after the Incident because they still hoped to tap the energy for their experiments.

Jon G: I think that's exactly right -- the loop debated by Jacob and the Man in Black is one of events, not time. I really like your formulation of the time loop(s) as "a cycle within a cycle." Good question as well re Hurley seeing Christian in the Cabin. One possibility is Jacob originally controlled Zombie Christian. Maybe the shift from formal to casual signals a transfer of control. Another possibility is that Locke unwittingly allowed the Man in Black into the Cabin on his first visit. Could that be what the struggle was? Alternatively, Hurley may have stumbled onto some powwow between Jacob and the Man in Black. As for Horace, I think the significance of that scene was to show he built the cabin as a getaway from home. Perhaps Jacob used it for that purpose too?

Capcom: Hmmm...Daniel actually says in the Variable she was mistaken. The noble lie is purely my interpretation of her actions and motive. Love the comparisons with Land of the Lost! I had no idea such talented writers worked on that show...

DJ: Actually, an arranged marriage would defeat the purpose. Aaron and Ji-Yeon must really and truly be in love to transcend the Island's opposition and create the Omega Point. I think they probably planned to make Walt more of a central character, but his growth spurt made that impossible. I still hold out hope that some future version of adult Walt will make it back to the Island with adult Aaron and Ji-Yeon.

lockerocks: Grim...but I have to admit that I, too, thought of Lost upon hearing of the crash.

Wayne: I know what you mean about flying. I know we're less likely to die in a plane crash than we are walking or driving down the street. But the fact that, for the most part, no one survives a plane crash really freaks me out. Interesting suggestion about the Man in Black shaking the Cabin during Locke's first visit. I suggested something similar -- see my comments to Jon G above.

Christie: I think Miles's episode established that he can't actually see dead people -- only scan their brains. Something is clearly up with Claire -- I'm just not yet prepared to say she's dead. But you're absolutely right that she seemed strangely unconcerned by abandoning Aaron. It was almost like she was hypnotized (by a snake) or drugged like she was during her stay in the Caduceus station. On that latter note, I really like Doc Jensen's speculation that Claire will come walking out of the jungle just like she did in S1.

Oh OK, thanks Big. And I fully agree with her noble lies, that's how I finally came to feel about what she said as well, to give her the benefit of the doubt as a mother, and to refrain from putting her in the category of "Ben The King Of All Self Serving Lies". :-p

I had no idea about the LOTL writers either, until I watched the eps this week and saw their names under the ep titles! Then I knew that I had to post a comparison with Lost Science about it, haha. :o)

Haha, I just saw that the actor who played the Sleestak leader in the series LOTL is Jon Locke! Ack, we are surely now forever caught in the spiraling vortex that connects everything in the universe to Lost, no matter how sublime or ridiculous! :-O

Hey, just throwing this one out there. I saw one of those fake books you put on your shelf and fill with the original alien autopsy photos (or at least I would :), and it was A TALE OF TWO CITIES. Which got me thinking about Desmond's book OUR MUTUAL FRIEND (with a nudge from something mentioned on CapCom's blog).

The books have always meant something. So, if OUR MUTUAL FRIEND refers to MIB and Jacob, well, who is the person/entity they BOTH know? Again, just tossing it outh there, that the struggle might be between black and white, yin and yang, but there are free radicals like Desmond. Just thinking out loud, is all. Is there a third entity that Jacob and MIB both know equally well. Well, I'm guessing the Island itself. Any other thoughts?

Bigmouth, I respect your hesitancy to label Claire as deceased. I think for me one of the reasons I first started thinking she was dead was after I saw the mobisode where Christian tells Vincent to go wake up Jack, because he's got work to do. This took place very shortly after the plane had crashed, and so I was thinking, "Wow, Christian's ghost seems to know something. Maybe when you're a ghost on the Island, you somehow get a sense of the Big Picture and what's really going on." Because it's not like the mobisode took place days or weeks after the plane crash, where a ghost could have time to learn the Big Picture; it was pretty much within hours of the plane crash. I then linked this to Claire's don't-worry-everything's-going-to-be-okay attitude we saw her have in Horace's cabin. I then figured that like her father she seemed to possibly know the Big Picture, and Miles was looking at her funny, and she was found in the middle of a house that had exploded (which should have killed her), so I figured she must also be dead.

But if Claire was a ghost, it still begs the question of how Sawyer (who doesn't have an ability to see ghosts of which we know) was able to see her, talk to her and touch her. Hurley can physically interact with ghosts, but that's because he's got a gift.

Somebody had mentioned that maybe Claire was "mostly dead" (possibly an unintentional reference to the Princess Bride, ha ha) and was therefore able to be overtaken or replicated by MIB. Along those lines, perhaps Miles was looking at her funny, because like in the Nickelback video for "Savin' Me", Miles could see the numbers over her head counting down to her imminent death. Okay, that was a joke, but perhaps Miles does have some sort of a gift like that, where he can sense when someone is about to die. Because I agree with Bigmouth that even though there are some weird things about Claire, it doesn't quite add up that she's a ghost now.

Bigmouth, I loved the distinction you made between "formal Christian" and "casual Christian", because I had also wondered about that. All of the appearances of Christian in his formal attire have him acting somewhat robotic and inhuman, sorta like when ghostly Yemi was talking to Eko. Perhaps the two phases we see are not so much MIB and Jacob, but perhaps MIB and Smokey (assuming that MIB and Smokey are two distinct beings). Perhaps "formal Christian" is Smokey copying the dress of what Christian looked like in the coffin (similar to how he copied Yemi's dusty priest clothes as they appeared in the crashed drug plane). And "casual Christian" is MIB, who doesn't act as robotic. The only problem with this is that in the mobisode with Christian and Vincent--the very first chronological instance of "formal Christian"--Christian isn't acting very robotic. So I'm not totally sure about this. Perhaps this theory is simplified if MIB and Smokey are viewed as one person, and that every instance of Christian on the Island has always been MIB/Smokey.

I was the one who thinks Claire is for the most part dead--she mentioned having a headache that was gone at some point, so this means she was alive when Sawyer touched her. When Miles sees her leave in the night, he might be seeing her life-force, or whatever, leave her. I just hate to think that Claire became nothing more than a plot device at the end, though, as Big said about Sayid, if a character's storyline is up, why continue using that character in time-wasting situations. That said, who knows who will be alive again in S6? And Big, next time post Aaron underneath the darn comment bar, I'd rather see anybody (even Kate) besides this kid everytime I'm typing. Yes, I can move the bar, but I still have to see the kid when I get to the comment link. (Nothing against Aaron, I think I'm just reminded that Kate took care of him).

For those who have concerns about the show veering from the plot of the Losties' redemption, etc., here is a recent quote from TPTB: "At the same time we will be trying to tell redemption stories about the characters. These characters do indeed have a destiny."

A very short article is here in case you haven't seen it (vague minor spoilers that you could figure out yourself anyway, i.e, no-duh-info): link

I’m reading over some recent summaries of old Lost episodes, and in episode 3 from the first season, Sawyer has already noticed Jack’s need to fix things and points this out to him. He accuses Jack of not seeing the big picture.

I suddenly realized there might be a correlation there between Jack and the Man in Black. Jack is focused on the here and now and is compelled to fix things, no matter the cost. You could say he is driven to succeed and has a singular goal: to get the people off the Island. There is no thought about the repercussions of doing so, despite Locke’s repeated warnings.

Could it be said that the Man in Black might suffer from the same problem? Is his desire to kill Jacob and stop the destruction a near-sighted goal which doesn’t take into account the bigger picture? Perhaps the struggle between the Man in Black and Jacob is symbolized by the constant struggle between Locke and Jack. If so, then Jack and the Man in Black represent science, skepticism and shortsightedness, while Locke and Jacob represent faith, optimism and the bigger picture.

I just realized how Jacob will return. Remember Star Trek II, where just before Spock died he transferred his katra to McCoy and said, "Remember"? Well, just before Jacob died he grabbed hold of Ben and held onto him. Obviously Jacob is a Vulcan who has filed down his ears so that you can't tell. Next season, Ben will start reciting Jacob-ish phrases and going crazy. Ilana and Bram will have to perform fal-tor-pan and project Jacob's katra into Frank's body. Just before Frank's soul is pushed out of his body to be eaten by the Smoke Monster like a delicious snack, Christian will briefly pop out his head from behind some bushes to say, "You can go now."

Okay, this is a completely ridiculous post, but I couldn't resist. My apologies.

Very clever funny scenario! But I have also wondered about Jacob touching Ben, so I think that you could be on track actually. The whole "sauntering right up to his death" act just felt so much like an Aslan/Phoenix thing to me.

Bigmouth, I know you are going with the Aaron and Ji-Yeon angle in your theory but do you think that perhaps the Rose and Bernard scene was more than just a scene to answer the 'Where the hell are Rose and Bernard' question ? I know they are back in 1977 but the choices they have made for their life does fit nicely with your Omega Point. Amounts to nothing if they have since died but that scene could be a huge clue nonetheless. Would be really cool if the Season 6 opener is called 'The Incident Part 3'.

Before anyone discounts Bigmouth's theory about Aaron and Ji Yeon too quickly, ask yourself what possible importance children would have on a show like this. It's somewhat possible that they have a role to play while they are still children, but I think it's much more likely that their destiny is for when they are older. Whether or not the show actually shows what they will be doing when they are older or merely hints at it we can only guess. But with the huge time spans we've already seen (as far back as the 1800's at least, with references to ancient Egypt), I don't think it's that much of a stretch to envision the show at least peeking a mere twenty or thirty years into the future.

Everything on this show is on purpose, and a special child like Aaron, along with Sun's cryptic phrase of having found someone for Ji Yeon are not mistakes or mere curiosities that will never have a payoff. When the writers of a show like this know where it's headed, it's inevitable that they will put in cryptic phrases that upon a second viewing will make you go, "Oh yeah, THAT'S what she meant!" And not only that, but the fact that the writers have waited until the very last season to show what Aaron's (and possibly Ji Yeon's) importance is should be a huge signal that it's pretty big.

Neat website Thunderstorm, I've always been fascinated by that possibility. I don't know if they cover this (haven't read that far yet) but I think that they also should study the effects on global consciousness of the all-invasive global multimedia, which pretty much dictates how we have to live our lives now, unless we retract ourselves into a remote jungle somewhere far from all media. :-p I really like the Feynman quote in the "about" page too.

What you say is true JG, especially Sun's intended intro of JY and A. This could be a three-sided plan though, if Charlie is included. Perhaps JY and A fill some spot, and then baby C fills in for whatever Desmond's role turns out to be? There might be some intended purpose for little C in the offspring plans, other than just turning Ben's mind around when he went to kill Penny. Or, maybe not. :o)

Yes Pud, more Incident details!! Say, the wrap-up of the immediate aftermath.

Wayne: I like the Island being their mutual friend. Or maybe Smokey? I don't think Miles saw Claire's life force because only Hurley can see ghosts.

Jon G: I like this label of "mostly dead." What if the term describes people who are *supposed* to be dead but aren't because of someone else's intervention? Maybe the Man in Black saved Claire like he did Michael to serve his nefarious purposes. Was Charlie "mostly dead" by the time he deactivated the Looking Glass jammer?

It's very possible that Smokey has always been the Man in Black. But that speculation raises tough questions -- e.g., why Smokey behaved differently in two encounters with Locke, and what formal Christian was doing in the Cabin. Then there's the whole casual vs. formal dichotomy that started this discussion -- why bother changing if they're one entity? I can certainly see some of the Man in Black in Jack. I wonder if the Man in Black has influenced other characters we know. For example, throughout the Incident, I kept wondering if he had possessed Radzinsky.

Regarding Jacob's return, someone else (Doc Jensen?) has analogized his touch to the mind meld that saved Spock in Star Trek II. If I'm right, however, Jacob won't be returning in corporeal form. Any appearances will be as an apparition, ala Ben Kenobi.

Pud: I suppose Rose and Bernard could be the Omega Point -- the symbolism of their race works nicely. Still, something about their scene said "goodbye" to me. I can see them as Adam and Eve, but feel their story is otherwise done. Plus, it's hard to ignore the messianic overtones of Aaron and Ji-Yeon's miraculous births.

Thunder: Very interesting! In Teilhard's view, the noosphere is a kind of precursor to the Omega Point. Have you read Dan Simmons's books Ilium and Olympos? There are tons of Lost parallels, including post-humans who dissolve into clouds of black nanobots. Of particular relevance here, there are two god-like avatars -- Prospero and Ariel -- who evolved out of different aspects of the noosphere. Highly recommended, particularly for fans of sci-fi and Shakespeare.

DJ: But that's the point! Aaron and Ji-Yeon's marriage will be miraculous precisely because it isn't "supposed" to happen. Remember, every time someone saves the world on Lost, they do so against the dictate of fate.

Capcom, interesting question about little C (sounds like the name of the choreographer Lil' C on the show So You Think You Can Dance, which I absolutely love) and his possible destiny. Maybe all three youngsters will get together soon and we'll have Lost's version of "Who's Talking?".

Bigmouth, very interesting idea about Miles being able to sense those who are SUPPOSED to be dead. I guess we'll find out next season the true extent of Miles' abilities. And after watching the episode where Hurley compared his abilities with what Miles can do, I had wondered if the two of them would somehow team up. With the two of them together, you have the ultimate means of extracting info from the dead: Miles can get info from corpses (and I think objects too, right...?) in case no ghosts are around, and Hurley can get info from ghosts if no corpses are around. Perhaps when Miles comes back to the present (assuming that group is Jacob's "they're coming" group), he will touch Jacob's corpse, which will segue into a huge and informative flashback showing Jacob's past.

Good points about the complications of merging MIB with Smokey. I think this is probably one of those cases where we just don't have enough info to make an educated guess. Unfortunately, we will have to wait until the VERY LAST EPISODE next season to find out what the Smoke Monster is, along with the significance of the four-toed statue and who the skeletons really are (http://lostspoilers-odi.blogspot.com/2009/06/lost-writers-damon-and-carlton-hint-at.html).

I agree with you about Rose and Bernard being Adam and Eve, and that their story is basically done. Jack may have thought that the bodies had been dead for 40-50 years, but in "Deus Ex Machina" Locke said that normal clothing would decompose within 2 years. He also noted that the high quality polyester on the Nigerian smuggler would take 2-10 years to get to its current condition (all info from Lostpedia's Adam and Eve page). So basically it's entirely possible for Rose and Bernard to be Adam and Eve, despite the fact that they were alive in 1977.

Bigmouth, I don't really know anything about this Omega Point concept. I just now looked it up on Wikipedia (along with Teilhard) to see what the fuss was about. The more I read the more fascinated I got. The Wikipedia page on the Noosphere makes a brief reference to Ken Wilber, who I heard about when I was deep into the Matrix movies. But I feel like these are grand concepts and that I need a more simplistic approach as a sort of primer. Do you have any suggestions?

This could be way off the subject, but lately I've become fascinated with reincarnation, and the scientific study of life after death. The vague possibility of reincarnation being a part of Lost's mythology excites me even more. But I've been reading stuff by Dr. Brian Weiss and Dr. Michael Newton, whose patients recall under hypnosis the nature of the spirit world experienced by those "between lives". The consistency of the descriptions between all the patients from both doctors is astounding. I really appreciate the more scientific approach they take to learning these things. I've also been following the AWARE Study (http://www.mindbodysymposium.com/Human-Consciousness-Project/the-AWARE-study.html), a 3-year study of near-death experiences (NDE's).

Sorry to go off on that tangent, but I just love this stuff and I really hope that Lost touches on reincarnation at least a little bit.

Greg Tramel: Or maybe Zombie Locke has to get served to save humanity? I could see him and Jack in a dance-off for control the Island. Seriously, though, love this notion of an "alchemical wedding." Wasn't one of the episodes titled "Fire and Water"?

Jon G: I really dig your speculation that Miles will scan Jacob's corpse and learn the truth! But I actually didn't mean to suggest Miles can sense people who are "mostly dead." It's possible, but the evidence seems to be that he can only read minds.

Jon G: I really think Dan Simmons's Hyperion Cantos is as good an introduction as any to the concepts underlying the Omega Point. The instruction isn't overt, but the books do a great job of showing, not telling, what the Omega Point might look like.

I suppose at this point I should simply expect people to be giving away spoilers here, instead of posting the links and letting people decide if they want to check it out. Like reading the last page of a book, you know? But the spoilers might be fodder for Big's posts over the hiatus.

Big, I don't mean that Miles literally saw Claire's life force leave her, more like what Jon G said about rewatching and thinking OH! etc. Everyone else was sleeping, only Miles saw Christian and Claire. That's what I was getting at, all indications seem to be that Claire had a concussion or hematoma (likely the latter)and died in her sleep, to me, at least. At the surface, we could argue that Miles was being stubborn with Sawyer after Claire was gone, but it might have been a bit more than that. So, yeah, Claire was mostly dead after the Barracks exploded, and as with most brain injuries, died after losing consciousness. Re: if Charlie (or anyone else) was mostly dead, I stick with my thoughts that a character lives only as long as he is supposed to to nudge destiny along, a backgammon piece. And there is a difference between Miles' and Hurley's abilities, but what if it works differently when the two are together?

Jon G, nice thoughts on Jack/Locke being MIB/Jacob, particularly that MIB/Jack is so damned impatient. I suppose the anologue for Alpert would be Kate, because he never seems to have a freaking clue. :)

Bigmouth, thanks for the recommendation. I have added those four books to my Amazon wish list.

You mentioned Miles' ability to read minds, and even though I'm assuming you meant the "minds" of corpses, wasn't there a vague sort of hint that he can read the minds of living people as well? I remember when Michael first came onboard the freighter, Miles seemed to know that Michael was using a false name. Perhaps Miles is not limited to reading the minds of the deceased.

I posted the following comment on Lostpedia's Lost Rewatch blog for episode four of season one.

There's something that I find interesting about the concept of tabula rasa and how the writers utilize it. Even though the real-life philosopher John Locke borrowed the phrase to describe his particular brand of empiricism, the concept doesn't actually jive at all with the character of John Locke on the show.

If you think about it, tabula rasa is more in line with the idea that people don't have a prewritten destiny and that every individual can essentially create their own life path--sort of like Sarah Connor's insistence that "there's no fate but what we make for ourselves."

And yet what do we see Locke's character infatuated with? The idea that he's SUPPOSED to do this or SUPPOSED to do that. His whole sense of purpose was wrapped up in the idea that he had a destiny. This seems to put him at odds with his real-life's namesake, who believed the exact opposite.

The character who personifies tabula rasa to a much higher degree would be Jack. He is (or was) vehemently opposed to the notion of destiny, to the point of being angry about it. And in fact, we see him being the one in this particular episode as the character who describes the logical conclusion of tabula rasa to Kate, which is that it is possible to make a fresh start.

But as we saw in season five, Jack made a bit of a change in this regard and became more willing to accept the idea that he had a destiny and a purpose, even if it was difficult for him to believe it at first. He eventually embraced it so fully that he was willing to blow up a bomb because of his belief that it was destiny that he do so.

So where does that leave Locke? Is his story finished now that he is dead, or is there yet more work for him to do? Like Jack, does Locke have a change of heart in store for him also, where he begins to truly embrace tabula rasa and put aside his obsession with destiny? I realize that he is dead and that the show goes out of its way to point out that "dead is dead" (even going so far as to name an episode as such), but that doesn't mean that he can't return as a disembodied spirit for one last hurrah. Perhaps his final contribution to the grand puzzle of Lost is to reject the "destiny" written for him by others and to finally have the courage to perform the ultimate act of faith--to be the author of his own destiny. In this way he would be like Neo from the Matrix trilogy, who rejected the Path of the One to create his own path--the Path of Neo.

But Locke will have to do more than simply reject the idea of being subject to a destiny written for him by someone else. He must actively write his own destiny, rather than sink to the depths of nihilism and feelings of a pointless existence. The last time he resorted to that path, he stopped the Button from being pushed and the world was nearly destroyed. With a shocked look on his face, all he could say was, "I was wrong."

This time Locke has one final chance to do it right, and to do so he must connect with who he really is--something that his high school teacher saw in him but Locke didn't want to admit. As much as he always derided Jack for it, Locke himself is a man of science. Jack and Locke have always been like yin and yang. They still are, but now they have switched roles and Jack is the man of faith while Locke must become the man of science. And somehow he must accomplish his final mission from beyond the grave.

Good point Wayne about Claire dying in her sleep. Heheh, "blunt force trauma to the head with subcutaneous hematoma" is my favorite line from CSI. That's probably what she got in the explosion since she was under the rubble. :o)

Very helpful ideas guys! And I also thought, "Oh, he can do that too," when Miles knew about Mike's fake name. Could be just a false sign from TPTB but....

I rewatched the Incident for the first time last night, and some things jumped out at me. First, I'm now convinced that the disembodied voice who originally asked Locke to "help me" in the Cabin was indeed Jacob. In the scene where Jacob visits Ilana in the hospital, he asks her to "help me." We then cut to the Cabin, reinforcing the connection between the two requests for help.

Second, and relatedly, I'm pretty sure Ilana was expecting Jacob to be at the Cabin. The dialogue is ambiguous, but in context with the hospital flashback, it seems clear to me she's saying "Jacob hasn't been here in a long time." The "someone else" who's been using the Cabin is presumably Casual Christian, who represents the interests of the Man in Black.

Third and finally, I'm convinced that the MIB was speaking through Zombie Locke during the confrontation in the Foot. The dialogue between him and Jacob leaves little doubt -- the two clearly recognize each other as adversaries. What's still unclear is whether the MIB simply pretends not to recognize the Foot or to remember Zombie Alex's encounter with Ben, or whether some remnant of the old Locke is in there, too.

Wayne: I hear you, I just disagree that Miles seeing Claire walk off with Casual Christian required any special ability. I think anyone else who was awake at the time would have seen the same thing. When I say a character is "supposed" to be dead, I mean more that they've cheated fate somehow, the way Des did by saving Charlie repeatedly.

Jon G: Actually, I meant that he can read minds. If you look back at my recap of Some Like It Hoth, you'll see I agree that Miles read Michael's mind. This actually points to a problem with the speculation that Miles will learn the truth by scanning Jacob's corpse. As we learned in that same episode, cremation is a problem for Miles...

Bigmouth, very interesting connection you made between the "help me" to Ilana and the cut to Horace's cabin. I hadn't made that connection, but you might have something there.

The producers stated that the ash circle acted as a sort of standoff between Ben and Jacob. Jacob has control over Ben, yet the ash circle gives Ben a small amount of control over Jacob. Could it truly be that Jacob was trapped in the cabin? Did MIB trap him there and use the ash to prevent him from leaving? If so, the question that needs to be answered is how long he was there and when did he get out.

So let me present a possible scenario. In order for MIB's plan to work, he needs to trap Jacob and keep him from interfering. Somehow he traps Jacob in Horace's cabin using the ash (no idea why that works, but oh well) at some unknown point in the past. I don't think MIB would be able to trick Richard, since Richard expects Jacob to be at the foot of the statue and MIB doesn't seem to have access to it. It's possible that Jacob knew ahead of time that MIB would trap him, and told Richard to rule the Others and use his best judgment. So it's possible that all this time that Richard has been claiming to get instructions from Jacob, it was all a lie. But I don't think that Jacob told Richard about being trapped by MIB or anything of the sort, because when Richard led everyone to the statue, he seemed to totally expect Jacob to be inside.

So anyway, fast forward to Locke's first visit to the cabin. Perhaps MIB wasn't expecting Locke to go there at all, or at least not as early as he did. So after Locke's first visit to the cabin on 12/19/04, MIB realizes he needs to get Jacob out of there so that he can't communicate with Locke anymore. So MIB is actually the one who broke the ash circle and let Jacob go, who immediately returned to the foot of the statue.

I just now realized that the ash is probably from the remains of the destroyed statue. It was probably destroyed when the volcano on the Island blew (the producers stated that the volcano will figure into the storyline and be somewhat important). If Jacob is somehow linked to the statue and has to remain where it is, then a circle of ash would theoretically contain him as well. More about the implications of that in a second.

So getting back to MIB, two days later on 12/21/04 after Locke's first visit, Hurley sees the cabin in a different spot, with two people inside. These two people are Jacob and MIB disguised as Christian. MIB breaks the ash circle and begins moving the cabin "magically" to the statue. En route it is seen by Hurley, who sees MIB and Jacob inside. The next day on 12/22/04 Locke comes across the ash circle, but the cabin isn't there because MIB has moved it to the statue to drop off Jacob. At some point during the following week, MIB moves the cabin to the spot where Horace originally built it (the ash circle is not at this spot). Locke finds the map on Horace's corpse and finds MIB inside disguised as Christian. At some point after that, MIB moves the cabin back to the ash circle, where it is found three years later by Ilana and her crew.

So what are the implications of Jacob being limited to the statue or its remains? That would mean that some or all of the visitations by Jacob off-Island were not Jacob at all--depending on how long Jacob was trapped in Horace's cabin. Most likely they were MIB in disguise. If MIB knew about Ilana, Bram and the others, he might have even been the one to visit her in the hospital, in the hopes that she would bring everyone with her to the Island and he could kill them all after he killed Jacob. Perhaps Jacob had some sort of protection over them which prevented MIB from killing them outright. So if he could bring them to the Island and kill Jacob, they would immediately be next on his list (as he told Richard, after visiting Jacob they would "take care of" the people who survived Ajira flight 316).

Bigmouth, I'm not sure I totally agree with your assessment of Miles' abilities. When the father told Miles that his son's body had been cremated and spread over a football field, Miles said that it's easier when he's got a body. That could simply mean that since they weren't located at the football field, Miles couldn't access the boy's memories. An even simpler explanation is that Miles knew immediately that the boy didn't know that the father loved him and only said the part about the body as an excuse. The part about holding the father's hands was unnecessary and was Miles' way of deceiving the father, much like the unnecessary "ghostbusters" equipment he brought to the woman's house.

And speaking of that scene at the woman's house, Miles could contact the spirit just by being in the room. All he did was sit on the edge of the bed and talk to the spirit that was there. So it might possibly be that the only difference between Miles and Hurley is that Miles cannot see the spirit, but Hurley can.

Jon G: I really like your suggestion that the ash circle is the remains of the Statue! Are you saying the Statue's destruction had something to do with Jacob's move to the Cabin? I respectfully submit you're overthinking it just a bit with this notion that some of Jacob's appearances off the Island were really the Man in Black. The revelation of their very existence and the MIB's possesion of Locke strike me as confusing enough without the added complexity of MIB also assuming Jacob's form.

Regarding Miles, all of what you say is possible, but I personally disagree. Here's my contrary take on the evidence. Miles says to Hurley:

What I can do has nothing to do with chatting with ghosts, you nitwit. It's a... feeling... a sense. When somebody's dead, their brain stops functioning, which means there's no more talking. There's just who they were and whatever they knew before they died.

Obviously, that contradicts what Miles tells Mr. Gray and the drug dealer's mother -- so he's lying to someone either way. But I choose to credit Miles's comments to Hurley because he has no incentive I can see to lie at that point. By contrast, Miles has a clear monetary incentive to lie to the parents. Keep in mind, I think it's very possible the drug dealer's poltergeist was there in the bedroom. All I'm saying is that Miles couldn't see or speak with hiim. Whatever knowledge Miles had of the situation was gleaned from scanning the drug dealer's body at the morgue.

Just another point on the topic of Miles. 1. There was that scene last season where Miles makes a comment to Charlotte about how she's come back to the island. She asks him "what do you mean" and he says "yeah what do I mean?" I don't know what "dead" person would be telling him that Charlotte used to live there.2. Also there's that scene that was cut I think earlier in this season where Miles apparently knows they shouldn't cross the Pylons or found out the code or something.I just think there's still more to Mile's gift then we've been told so far.

And on that note if those conceived on the island are more apt to have special abilities then it would be great to see in the future if Ji Yeon is "special"

I do think the children have to hold some significance in the overall endpoint of the show. Whether it's a marriage or something else, it would be really diappointing if there isn't a reason for all the stories around the difficult births, etc.

Bigmouth, I do hear what you're saying about making things more complex than they need to be. However, this show has been nothing but increasingly complex since it started, so I'm not too worried about that. In order to encapsulize most of my theory, all they would need to do on the show would be to take one of those scenes where Jacob visits somebody in their past, then show him morphing into MIB as he walks away. All my complex theorizing would be distilled into a couple seconds of screen time with no need for any dialogue. Every theory about Lost that has ever been disproven has usually been because the true answer is more complex than what the current info seemed to indicate. Think about what we now know about the Hatch and the Others compared to what we knew in season one, and you'll see what I mean.

That being said, if I'm right about Jacob being trapped in the cabin, it may have been for just a short time. Jacob's visit to Jack was in 2001, and his next visit was to Sayid in 2005. All the visits to the cabin took place in 2004, so it's still possible that all those visits by Jacob were indeed him. Perhaps he went to go visit Jack, Kate, Sun & Jin, Sawyer and Locke prior to being trapped in the cabin. Then MIB trapped him in the cabin at some point after 2001. Then in December 2004 he let him out, allowing him to return to the statue. Then in 2005 Jacob goes to visit Sayid (and Hurley in 2007).

The main reason that I believe those visits by Jacob were actually MIB is because otherwise my theory is sort of deflated. In other words, if Jacob can go anywhere in the world and visit all these people, then it doesn't really seem like anything holds him back--certainly not being held up at the statue. So if the statue doesn't prevent him from being a world traveler, why should anything else--such as a circle of ash? Granted, that ash could be very magical, but I'm just trying to think of WHY it would be magical, using what we know so far.

As for Miles (yes I'm going there again), I went to the episode where we see his first flashback. This is a section of the transcript from Lostpedia:

[Miles heads upstairs to the room. He places the machine on the table and turns it on. He sits in the room, and shivers. He seems to connect with the room]

MILES: You're not doing your grandmother any good staying here, man. You're causing her a lot of pain. I wanna go downstairs and tell her you've gone, but the only way I'm gonna be able to do that is if you tell me where it is. So where is it?

[Something falls by a bookshelf. Behind the furniture, Miles finds money and drugs. He takes the money, and disconnects the machine]

MILES: You can go now.

I would agree that Miles probably neither saw nor heard the ghost. But the fact that he's talking to it and expecting an answer shows that he believes the ghost is there (symbolized by his shivering). So he does believe that ghosts exist. The scene does not play out as if he already knew the information about where the kid's stash was. When the item on the bookshelf falls, Miles turns his head in that direction, as if realizing for the first time where he needed to look.

That being said, I agree with you that this is not what he said to Hurley. What he said to Hurley made it sound like he believes that when you die, all that's left of you are memories. And I also agree with you that he had no reason to fib about his abilities, so I don't have an answer for you on that one. But his actions in the kid's room indicates that he does believe in ghosts. So perhaps with Hurley, he was just being private and not revealing all his abilities just yet. But like you said, Miles is lying to someone for sure. He likes to keep his life secret, while exposing others'.

And I can't think of too many cabins that freaking move. Could the cabin be another one of Smokey's shapeshifting escapades? Perhaps Ilana and co burning it was a hint... you know... smoke? Haha. Just throwing stuff out there because even if something is bizarre on this show, there is typically an explanation that meshes with the rest of the mythology.

Bigmouth said...You heard it here first: Hurley will make a pit-stop in 2004 before quantum leaping back to the future. His job? To actively effectuate events we've seen by hanging Charlie's guitar from a tree branch, where Locke will tell Charlie to look, as he did back in Season 1 during House of the Rising Sun...

While it's a cool idea and could be pretty easily (imo) pulled off, how exactly do you think that would help the '04 timeline?

Also, I used to see you at 4815.com and I noticed your profile says something about leaving over copyright issues. I don't know what happened over there (and I'm not going to ask you to tell me) but have you ever considered coming over to Dark's forum.spoilertv.co.uk? You'd be a great contributor over there and I'd love to see you around.

I think one thing you're both forgetting is the ghost buster machine that Miles brought into the woman's house. This encounter with the boy's ghost does contradict what Miles says his powers can do, but it also is the only time we've seen him use that machine.

But I have a feeling we're never going to see that machine again, unfortunately.

i think we've all assumed the dustbuster was for show BUT maybe it creates white noise or an electric disturbance so Miles can “hear” or rather intercept the deceased’s brainwaves/thoughts, he may not necessarily be “talking” to a ghost but picking up the thoughts left there by the deceased, he is able to do this because of his electromagnetic exposure as child on the island (but I’m still not 100% sure Miles was born on the island)

also, i wonder if the ghostbuster machine had anything to do with the infamous changing pictures/frames

That's interesting DJ about the cabin. Maybe they did have to destroy it for a mystical reason, i.e., so it couldn't be used by him for whatever.

It would be pretty neat if the "flash" at the incident point (whether by the bomb or the energy) sent the LBs and 316ers into 2007 to help them on the beach! Then finally as we have wondered about all this time, the Losties and the Others would meld together, the "new" islanders would officially become new Others, and would live the rest of their lives as caretakers of the island...their destiny. :-o

Two more whackadoo questions to ponder. First, have Jacob and the Man in Black met in the Foot before? I wonder if that's what led to the destruction of the Statute. Maybe Jacob managed to destroy the MIB's physical body without actually killing him. Second, was Hurley's glimpse of the Cabin (i.e., with Formal Christian sitting in a chair) a vision of the future? I still believe that F. Christian is Jacob (or at least not the MIB). If not, however, then Hurley might have had a flash of the MIB's eventual occupation of the Cabin.

Christie: I think Mile's comment to Charlotte can be explained as him reading her mind like he did Michael's. But the deleted Sonic Fence scene is a bit more problematic. In my recap of Some Like It Hoth, I suggested that Miles's scanning ability is basically the same as Smokey's. If so, he may be especially sensitive to the Sonic Fence like Smokey. Maybe that's how he could sense the Fence was down...

Jon G: Like I said in my last reply, I think it's very possible that a poltergeist was in the bedroom with Miles. But I sense that, at some point, the writers reconsidered their initial portrayal of Miles's power -- maybe because of the overlap with Hurley's. Since then, they've taken pains to clarify with dialogue and depictions that Miles's ability is to scan minds like Smokey. I think we'll eventually look back at Miles's conversation with the drug dealer as a minor plot hole. Of course, even if there was a ghost, we seem to agree that Miles couldn't chat with him, so he probably can't communicate with the cremated Jacob either way.

I, too, am confused by the podcast explanation of the ash circle. If you look back at posts like Chorus of the Dead, you'll see that I've wondered myself if it might be a binding circle used by Ben to keep Jacob imprisoned. The comment you cite seemed to support that speculation. After the Finale, however, I'm reconsidering that dynamic. I now believe the ash circle protected Jacob like the Sonic Fence surrounding the Barracks. The writers may even have revealed that Horace built the Cabin to underscore the comparison to the Fence. Maybe Jacob depended on Ben to maintain the ash circle's integrity?

DJ: I've wondered the same thing myself -- see Jacob's Moving Castle. But see my comment above to Jon G -- I think the ash circle protected Jacob. Building on the Sonic Fence analogy, is it possible the circle kept Smokey out of the Cabin?

Thirty-Fiver: I took that comment from my recap of the Incident -- it's the very last Whackadoo Prediction in the post. Because none of this was supposed to happen, Jacob may need Jack and Co. to help effectuate other mysterious events we've already seen. I'm guessing they will flash to 2004 just in time to see Oceanic 815 crash. They may even interact with crash survivors who don't realize the former have traveled through time. You may be right about Miles's magical dustbuster explaining the bedroom encounter plot hole -- good thinking!

To clarify, I don't post anymore on 4815162342.com because, between this blog and I Hate My DVR, I just don't have the time. The only other Lost sites where I still post are the Fuselage.com and (very occasionally) Dark UFO. I no longer post full theories on any internet forums anywhere because Eye M Sick may become a book and I want to avoid any confusion over copyrights. Still, you aren't the first person to be confused by that signature, so people are clearly getting the wrong idea...

Greg Tramel: Makes sense to me! If this were Marvel Comics, you and Thirty-Fiver would surely get a No Prize.

@Greg and Capcom, back when y'all started the 2007/8 discussion, I did mention that the only logical reason for such a short jump was so there could be two Lockes. It is about the only reason for this to happen, like Greg said here, even if it was only a few days or weeks in the past. If they are in 2007, they are likely within days of the time Locke and Widmore spoke in Tunisia, MIB has a very tiny loophole there. (I'm still wanting to know why it's Tunisia that is the exit point.)

The thing about the guitar, how could Charlie's guitar be in the case when Jacob leaves the case with Hurley in 2008? Presumably, it is still on the Island, unless Jacob himself took it and brought it LA, which I think would be interesting.

I'll bring up the mural again, three cabins, all with different colored roofs. Could Ilana have gone to the cabin's third manifestation?

Big, that is a good connection re "help me." The writing on this show in this respect is impeccable, I can never get everything the first time around. I'm not a big fan, for years now, of DarkUFO because of their glee in posting spoilers. Granted I don't read them, I'm just saying that, in principle, there's no point in enjoying anything if you know the outcome. I'm for free will, DarkUFO seems to be all about determinism.

My theory about the opening episode might not even follow the events of Jughead's detonation. Like S5 was obviously 1977 at the very opening, then we got 1974 which left the Faraday sighting and his being MIA in doubt. Just saying, we'll get something good, but with so many people expecting an eye opening in the jungle, it could easily be Juliet's eye opening back in Miami. While part of me hopes we get time skips again, I'd also think it wouldn't work true to the show. Maybe we will get Island flashbacks, which would be cool. Hurley watches Jacob with his guitar case trick. Then he runs into Shannon or Boone. Maybe we'll even get a little Libby back story during the 2004 stop.

One thing I'm pretty sure of is that Jack was wrong when he told Sawyer "See you in LA".

Enjoying the comments, wish a few of our mutual friends would post again. And, welcome Thirty-Fiver. I am assuming we are not hearing from KoreAmBear because he is enjoying summer in Hawaii. *grumble*. 50 and raining in Chicago.

There's something that bugs me about either Jacob or MIB disguising themselves as Christian. And the problem is I don't understand why they even disguise themselves in the first place! Was it simply so that in Christian's final visitation to Locke (in the frozen wheel chamber), Christian would tell Locke to say hello to his son, which would cause Jack to start rethinking whether or not he should return to the Island? Other than that, I can't think of any other good reason why they would use Christian's appearance. But even that's pretty weak, because Locke doesn't even know what Jack's father SHOULD look like, so it's not like it would be necessary to be disguised as Christian. That in itself makes me wonder if Christian really is just plain ol' Christian (especially since he referred to Jack as his son to Vincent when there's nobody else around).

Big, I have to admit that you planted a seed in my head with your suggestion that I was making things too complex. I tried avoiding it at first, but now I'm starting to wonder if on Lost there are some things that really ARE as they appear. Any thoughts?

Bigmouth, I loved your explanation of Miles' sensitivity to the sonic fence. Miles and Smokey, both mind-scanners. Awesome!!

It kind of makes you wonder if the writers will ultimately have some sort of scientific explanation for everything, or at least a pseudo-scientific explanation for everything. Ghosts are not really spiritual beings--they are electromagnetic vibrations that retain the consciousness and memories of a person. Smokey is not an Egyptian deity, he is a technological construct from an ancient (or alien) civilization whose makeup is so advanced as to appear somewhat magical to our limited understanding. Same thing with Jacob and MIB. Etcetera, etcetera.

35er, I don't think that we have any hard rules about spoilers here (like over at The Lost Community blog: link ) but we pretty much avoid posting them here I think as an unspoken rule. That is, I think that the general feeling here is to not post them, but just post where you can find them, if someone wants to see them. We've been pretty successful in that respect so far. Hope that helps, someone correct me if I'm wrong. :-)

Those are realy good points about CS, JG! IMO, Lost is the kind of show where a viewer doesn't really know when to get complicated, use face-value, or assume a goof. Because we have gotten all of those answers from TPTB in the past at some point, i.e., (paraphrasing of course) "there are hidden meanings and everything means something", "no a cigar is just a cigar", and "oops we goofed on that one, nevermind!" Waddyagonnado with that? Answer: drive yourself crazy wondering how to interpret the show, as we already do, :o)

Bigmouth, interesting idea about Horace's cabin being a miniature version of the Barracks surrounded by the sonic fence. That's probably gonna be one of those ideas that gets stuck in my head unless the show disproves it.

But the thing that's always bugged me is why the heck is Jacob (or MIB or Christian's ghost) shacked up at Horace's cabin in the first place? What's so special about it? Is there something unique about Horace? Does his name imply some sort of reference to the Egyptian god Horus? I got excited in season 5 when they started showing Horace, because I assumed they would start answering those questions. Obviously, they didn't. But the producers have hinted that Horace and Olivia (the woman in the car with him when they found Roger and baby Ben) "factor significantly in the future game plan for Lost".

Speaking of Horace and Olivia, I just now had to go to Lostpedia to do some quick research, because I suddenly realized there have been two women in Horace's life.

1) Olivia, played by Samantha Mathis, is seen wearing a wedding ring in the scene where she and Horace find Roger and baby Ben. This took place in 1964. Horace is also seen wearing a wedding ring. Nine years later in 1973 in the scene where Olivia is teaching a class about the Island's volcano, she is still wearing a wedding ring. On ABC's Lost website and on the enhanced version of Cabin Fever, she is referred to as Olivia Goodspeed, Horace's wife.

2) Amy, played by Reiko Aylesworth, was married to Paul (the ankh necklace-wearing dude) until he was killed by the Others in 1974. Fast forward to 1977, and now Amy and Horace are romantically involved. They have a child together, who turns out to be Ethan.

We do not yet know either of these women's last names. But it would appear that at some point between 1973 and 1977, something must have happened to Olivia. The last time we saw her, there was an attack on DHARMA by the Others, and Olivia picked up a rifle and headed out of the classroom. I suspect that in 1973 there was not yet a cease-fire between DHARMA and the Others. That wasn't until a year later. If Olivia died in that attack, you would think that Horace would not want peace with the Others. But then again, perhaps he staged her death because he'd fallen in love with Amy. Then a year later, Amy's husband shows up dead--again, blamed on the Others. Interesting.

Perhaps Horace and Amy are not the good guys we thought they were. Their son Ethan started getting chummy with the Others, something that struck me as totally odd--a DHARMA child being accepted into the ranks of the Others. Ben was barely accepted, and that was under special circumstances. It seems difficult to believe that if Ben struck up a friendship with a DHARMA child that he could show up at the Others' camp and simply say, "This is my buddy Ethan. Can he stay the night with us? He's cool, so don't worry." Do Horace and Amy have some sort of secret arrangement with the Others?

Well, #2 would seem to have happened already, since the Losties left the island and were in the world for three years including 2007, and then when they went back in time, Sun and some other 316-ers "exist" in both place-times. That is, they existed in both places in 2007, on the island and back in the world. Even Locke, as he is dead on the island, and alive in the world (or dead in both places). And maybe even some of the LBs, if they were alive in 1974-77. Rose and Bernard sure were. So there is some kind of parallel-world thing going on there, unless TPTB will make it be that your original time-body disappears when you go back in time to a time that you already existed. Oy. ????

I haven't "liked" Amy since the picnic siege, she just acted really strange to me (mostly by what she was saying/whining off-camera, I think). Unless it was merely not-so-good acting. But then bad acting would be a first for Lost, so that puts me back in the not-trusting her mode.

Capcom, in regard to bad acting, you didn't think the actress playing Charlotte did a horrible job? To me she really stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the much better actors and actresses around her. Plus she didn't seem to be doing anything important, other than to have an attitude and be corrected by Dan for it. Plus I didn't understand why Dan was falling for her. It didn't help that they never showed their first moment together, which made it difficult to connect emotionally to their relationship. Then she gets killed off without having accomplished anything of significance whatsoever. And shutting down the Tempest doesn't count in my book, because anyone could have stood guard. Why did Widmore insist on having her on the freighter? What was she supposed to accomplish? Did she fail? Her character's death was one of the only ones to which I merely shrugged and thought "Whatever" (right up there with Nikki and Paulo).

Oh, well, I forgot about her. But even though she was crabby most of the time, I kind of figured that there was supposed to be something annoying about her anyway that we weren't supposed to like. But I liked her right before she died. :o)

You're right, I had a difficult time buying into Dan's crush on her. Why??? For all the reasons you mention, and then some. I guess he was just one of those nice guys who gets trapped by b*tchy women and then gets really emotionally involved. (j/k sort of)

Possibly Faraday crushed on Charlotte because she might've been helping with his memory problems, taking him a bit more seriously than the others on the freighter. (I'm not one to make fun of anyone, but I certainly laughed out loud when Sawyer called Faraday "Twitchy.")

Jon, I think it was mentioned here by Big that Samantha Harris, who played Olivia, didn't want to return for what amounted to being in two episodes. Its great the way the writers can work around that, which is why, even though I didn't care for Nikki and Paulo, their -centric episode was one of the best on the series, for its unique flashback style.

Re: there being two of most of the characters, and going by the rule of thumb for time travel that you are fine as long as you don't come in contact with yourself, I'm thinking a way around that is that the Island exists outside of the real world, by seconds or minutes, and--aside from Miles and baby Miles--there's no real multiversal thing going on. It's kind of like ghosts on the Island, the real people in The World. For the Island to move, I'm guessing it has to vibrate apart--even if it is only moving through time-- instead of skimming around the Pacific. Could be why the code for the Looking Glass was "Good Vibrations," as an in-joke.

@35er, as Capcom pointed out, there are hyperlinks like the one she used, and a few people will even put SPOLIER ALERT!! even if it is a joke post. When I brought up the topic in earlier posts, and if you keep following this blog or read back to earlier posts, you'll see that Big and the followers here are pretty much all about the dynamics of the show, not offering one-ups, as DarkUFO did, by giving a complete spoiler commentary on the first flash fwd cliff-hanger a couple of years back. EYE M SICK has been about pure speculation--and Big can correct me if I'm saying it wrong--since 2004.

Back to time travel, I hope they don't pull the stunt that everyone returns to January 2008 (or whenever) at the moment they left, with everyone on Ajira 316 on Hydra and Juliet still dead (like Faraday and Frogurt and Charlotte), which, I guess, leaves Sawyer and Miles on the main Island. I might be presenting that wrong, but I'm getting at explaining why, particularly with Ajira, there are no two Suns, two Bens, etc. I'd rather it be the Island exists separate from the World, as with the difference in time when Regina shot that payload to Faraday.

@dz77, interesting to even think that someone will kill MIB before the show ends. Though it would be wild to see him dead, Smokey still around, and casual Christian saying hello. What then?

LOL, GT. I didn't like Bai Ling in the show, even though I do think that she is a very good actress (e.g. The Lost Empire) albeit a nutjob in real life. :o) But maybe it was just the weirdness/skankiness of the character that actually put me off.

I did just remember that I liked Charlotte a lot when she bonked Kate in the head and then when Daniel looked at her (with those troubled innocent eyes of his) as to why she did it, she just says, "Wot?!", as if it was perfectly normal to clock a snoopy brat like Kate in the head. I liked her a lot then, we were very sympatico at that point, heheh. It's just that if I was on the island and I was trying to ask her questions about things that I had a right to ask, and she kept averting the issues as she did as if I was an idiot, it would just really tick me off to no end, like it seemed to bug Juliet. But I think that was TPTBs intention maybe. ??

I think of DarkUFO as merely an online "complete information news vehicle" on everything Lost, including spoilers, if people so chose to go there. Altho, I very much did NOT agree with the posting of the complete script that time, that was creatively VERY mean (and artistically unethical?) to ALL of the Lost creators who work so hard to give us quality TV entertainment via their story. IMNSHO.

Having said that, sometimes spoilers on the facts of the show can aid in the analysis of what we've seen thus far, but what's the point in that, I can wait. I like it here and at TLC because there are no commenters here/there who like to one-up everyones' theories by posting spoilers and making themselves the big cheese by posting them. Altho, I don't think that's at all why 35er was asking the question, but just for getting the feel for how far we go here before a misstep would be made, which is very much appreciated. :-)

Wayne: Yes, I'm assuming Jacob took Charlie's guitar from the Island to LA. It's an ontological paradox like Richard's compass. Regarding "help me," I wonder if there are other phrases we can associate with Jacob. For example, the notion of certain people having "work to do" strikes me as a possible Jacob saying. Formal Christian says something like that in mobisode. Can anyone recall Casual Christian ever using the expression?

Thirty-Fiver: While not sticklers, we generally try to limit discussion of Lost spoilers to posts that explicitly say SPOILER in the title.

Jon G: Well, the MIB has a clear incentive to take Christian's form so as to con Claire into helping him enter the Cabin. Also, don't forget that Zombie Christian's first appearance was to Jack, who recognized him. Finally, there may be an element of convenience -- Christian's body was still fresh. Perhaps taking the form of decomposed corpses like Yemi's requires greater effort?

Regarding complexity, I would say this blog is one long testament to how easy it is to overthink things LOL! The problem is one's logic is only as good as one's assumptions. For me, the toughest thing to grasp has been the notion that none of what we've seen was supposed to happen. Once you grok that, Ms. Hawking's comments re course correction and destiny make a heck of a lot more sense.

dz77: Good to see you here, my friend! Consistent with the symbolism of the first season, I think Jack will kill the MIB/Locke.

Capcom: Is that right? The way I see it, none of Greg Tramel's rules have been violated, unless you count ontological paradoxes like the compass. I suppose we could call the whole inconsistency surrounding two copies of Penny's picture as an example of the timeline being changed. But I think Greg means "alternate" timelines in the sense of more than one timeline existing simultaneously, rather than changes to the timeline. (Greg, obviously correct me if I'm wrong...)

@Capcom, exactly my point re: spoilers. You can ignore them if you desire on DarkUFO or wherever. If you are reading comments here, it sucks to have a damn spoiler just be there, a few months back it happened re: someone as much as blurting about Ben getting shot. I don't necessarily agree that the spoilers can aid in the analysis, but I'm jaded by the project Big mentioned; if --- and --- were to speculate on where S6 will lead us, isn't it better to have commentary that is spoiler free? What good would it do for anyone here, never mind --- and --- in their ---, and on the blog, if we know certain events will happen and in what episode? I know one individual, and you know who I mean, Capcom, who'd get a spoiler and go from blog to blog, revealing it like the idiot he is (I'm not bashing here, his ego blew up somewhere around the spring of 2006.) That's my two cents, and I myself am at fault in different ways, twice in emails re: an episode someone hadn't seen yet. And, geez, the people on Twitter during the show, forgetting all about time zones. I don't use it much now since my assignment is done, but I can imagine the frustration of someone being on Twitter doing work they needed to do at that time--it happens in advertising a lot--and seeing someone in Texas adding updates from their iPhone every three minutes. What's the point of the immediacy, but for the one-upping thing?

But: it is Bigmouth's blog, none of us have any say-so other than listing the pros and the cons.

Anyways. Re: the time loops. When I mentioned the small window of the loop itself re: Ajira and the two Lockes, it got me thinking about 1977. Certainly there needed to be that three year gap involving Sawyer and Juliet, moreso for Faraday to be in Ann Arbor, though, learning everything DI. But, as with Ajira, everything goes to hell in, what, three days? Four? So Ajira's jump and flashes seemed to be well-orchestrated, both time-wise and in who went when. I've never believed Eloise was only playing on one side, even with her son's notebook. She'd side with whoever was going to win the coming war, though I've come to think of her as a bit more noble over the last few episodes. So why pick Ajira 316? I doubt anyone understood anything in the Lamp Post. Yes, the Black Swan Incident was as important as the Fail-Safe, but did Eloise know about the two Lockes (the loophole)? Were the flashes orchestrated by another power, the Island itself? Re: the two Lockes, I mean, even if she wasn't aware of Widmore meeting Locke in Tunisia, how did it just happen (through fate?) that Ajira only went back to in time two months or so (so there'd be MIB Locke and RIP Locke)? Widmore and Eloise might be in on this together more than we'd suspect. It would be interesting if there was going to be an Eloise/Widmore flashback in S6.

And, yea, Charlotte seemed tight-lipped, but at the same time, I kinda thought at first she left the Island when she was a bit older. Maybe Naomi filled the team in, could be the writers' strike left a few things unable to be addressed clearly. Which brings up Abbadon again. If Widmore did send the freighter and the plan was to kill everyone on the Island via Keamey, where does Abaddon play into it. Working for Jacob? That would explain his being an orderly and suggesting Locke take a walkabout. Now that we've heard that conversation about progress, was Widmore trying to help MIB or nudge Jacob's current attempt (as with the Black Rock) to end the current cycle?

@Bigmouth, I see you've posted while I was commenting. It does make sense that Jack will kill Locke, though I'm still wondering if LOST will end on a darker note, or least show that with Locke dead, Smokey is still out there. Everyone likes happy endings, but I think LOST will prove to be a watermark of sorts and be able to get away with a not-so-happy ending. I'm curious on what you think about Eloise and Widmore being more in the know than we've been led to believe. Jacob and MIB's conversation at the beginning of the last episode either reinforced or changed completely what is really going on re: this war that is coming.

Re: comments like "work to do," and "help me," there are several of the opposite, most common being a variation of "don't tell me what I can't do."

Oh, maybe I misunderstood GT, Big. But he mentioned "eslewhen" which is something that we had chatted a bit about at my Lost science blog ( link ) on the theory where a person could exist in the same place as their current *and* past/future self, for example. So that's why I mentioned how it seems as if that's already happened to some of the Losties who have time-traveled on the island within times that they already existed in the world. That is, what happens to the "self" that's already in the world? Especially with the application of the Kerr concentric timeshells, this "could" happen. But I kind of almost wish that TPTB won't explain that too much when all is said and done. Of course, my mind could change drastically on that by season 6, heheh.

Copy that Wayne, circa 2006. :-) Perhaps a new Lost universal law (like the Peter Principle) could be decreed in that, the hugeness of the spoiler a person releases (and the online scope of that release) is inversely proportional to the size of......ah well, let's say their brain. :o)

As for speculation and prediction of what is going to happen on the show....meh, I don't get into that too much for various reasons. So I don't care for, or need, certain spoiler-speculation in that way, and also a reason why I prefer it here like I said. Some other blogs get too obsessed with second-guessing TPTB. What's the point? I'll just enjoy drinking in what they concoct, in the manner they choose to reveal it. I'm sure most here feel like that.

But trying to figure the heck out of what we have seen already and what it means....oh yeah, I'm into that! Haha. But understandably, sometimes people forget and goof up and accidently blurt stuff out too when they don't normally, it happens.

wayne & capcom, i'll leave it up to y'all to tell me what i mean, i usually don't even know exactly, still trying to wrap my mind around it all, i need to rewatch the entire season 5(i've only watched each ep once for the entire series, i know i need to rewatch all the eps to see what i missed), season 5 was/is a brain melter

i found the nikko/paolo amd bai ling eps to be mysterious and intriguing so i actually enjoyed both of them, there were some much worse episodes

@Capcom, if you don't like speculation re: S6, then you WON'T ENJOY THE --- that is being ----- by ----- and -----. But I know what you mean :)

Also, so you all, know Capcom was NOT referring to anyone who has ever posted--spoiler or otherwise--on EYE M SICK. Its a guy who pretends his real name is one name up in the phone directory from another character on Loc--that is, LOST. He uses a fake name online, in real life, and has found a way to get more than a few LOST fans to pony up money to him. The Bernie Madoff of Blogs.

Unlike Capcom, I hyave some trouble with the Kerr shells, but not much. How's this? Say there is a Kerr shell over the Island. Another shell, overlapping that--and don't forget that lovely clue of the Russian egg doll in the Pearl toilet--of the rest of the world. So there is a Sun in 2007 and another Sun in 2008, protected by the shells? Is that it? Same with 1977, though the anamoly would be Faraday going to Ann Arbor. Though his time travel work did make him all "twitchy" and maybe special like Desmond. If we don't get an answer, that's fine. Really, it's not like the Ajira people were co-existing (so far) more than 3-4 days at the same time. Thoughts?

ok i guess i'm thinking of elsewhen a little differently, i don't think anybody is venturing beyond either cone (if they did that's when they would end up in elsewhen or an alternate/parallel universe)

have to ponder those being in more than 1 place fits in having 3 Lockes (maybe instead of 2) on the island at the same time

now fringe DEFINITELY, well IMHO deals with what i would call multiverses or alternate universes and traveling to elsewhen

Aha! The Russian Dolls! Wow, I'm totally disappointed in myself that I completely forgot about that hint. Heheh, would the dolls be time, and the toilet tank the universe? :-B But I mean that I think that there is one Sun back (literally) on the island in 2007 (planted there by the Ajira trip) and another Sun who left the island as an Oceanic6, and has lived off-island for 3 years, including 2007. So that makes me think: two Suns existing in 2007 in different times/places. But we don't really know when in 2007 they are on the island though, or if they really left in Jan.2008.

Yes, merging the cone theory with the concentric timeshell theory is not happening too smoothly in my head. I'd have to stick with the concentric shells for now since Chang mentioned it (and the Orchid logo looks like it), even though the cones were represented in Dan's book via illustration, and I'm almost positive via text, and they are also in S.Hawking's books. Verbally, Dan mentioned the record analogy, the grooves of which also look like the Orchid logo. TPTB have thrown out a lot of science theories all at once, to say the least.

For sure GT, Fringe is blatantly on the mulitverse track, and at least they outright tell us that it is, thank goodness! At least we don't have to wring that one out of hints and easter-eggs. X-D

i'm not a physicist nor do i play one on tv so please continue to correct me when i'm off my rocker but doesn't the kerr metric "prove" that it is very possible while Lafleur and company were DI in 1974-1977 it could well be that Daniel was in 2005-2008 in Ann Arbor

That's a very good question! Well, I'm just a "semiconductor materials analysis lab tech" (whoopdeedoo!) myself, and physics was my worst class in college(!), so whoodathunk that I'd be talking about all this now? But, here's what I liked about the Kerr theory, altho I don't know if it answers your questions:

* It includes the possibility of a spacetime spheres which allows spheres of existence within an outside area of existence. Here the inner areas could have a different spacetime, while the outer area retains it's current spacetime. Apparently you could theoretically travel from one shpere to another, via a theoretical wormhole, caused by a theoretical spinning black hole. This kind of also works with Dan's record groove analogy. What did he say, something about being on the same record, but not the same song?

* As Wiki puts it: "...the Kerr metric permits closed, time-like loops in which a band of travelers returns to the same place after moving for a finite time by their own clock [in another time sphere?]; however, they return to the same place and time, as seen by an outside observer..."

Infortunately, Wiki does not broach the subject of whether these travelers go back in time to their own past, thereby creating dual individuals. And so far I don't think that I have come across anything else that covers one person being in two space/times at the same proverbial "instant". So this does not even come close to answering your interesting question I'm afraid. :-(

P.S. Does M-theory mean that there could be eleven of the same person in different dimensins or space/times in the same point in time?! X-D

P.S. It appears to be the case on Fringe though, that there is only one William Bell, expressed by the fact that he's missing in "our" dimension, while he's existing in another separate dimension. But perhaps he's merely traveled into a parallel-space, but same-time dimension. Not into the past or future. ???

I think we are getting stuck on this 2007-8 thing (no big deal, but Greg, I TRULY am no smarter than you on this), and to be honest, it wasn't until Greg brought it up here awhile back that we even thought of Ajira going back in time. I don't think they'd go all multiverse because I would CERTAINLY call bullshit, my best way of thinking is, simply put, if you are on the Island, everything else still happens. 2 Suns, 2 Bens. And I again point out, if they are displaced in time by 48-72 hours (at least in 1977), does it make a difference that they co-exist? It's simpler, though, to think that the Island has a quality that will allow for certain things to occur.

And, Greg, I don't think it could not be much longer than two months re Ajira. The loophole was the time betweeen Locke leaving the Island and Ben hanging him. But this doesn't mean they'd need to go back to when Locke turned the wheel. MIB just needed a dead Locke to take over, so I think the Ajira thing runs parallel, 3-4 days in 1977, the same in 2007.

Capcom, yep, the Russian egg dolls. The writers do this all the time. I've said how the Nikki/Paulo episode is one of my favorites, and its for this kind of reason. Tons of info stuffed into one hour, Easter eggs, an on-Island story, even, as some have pointed out, Mr. LaShade being an analogue for Smokey or MIB.

yes i agree some of passengers on Ajira just went back a little over a month

they left “earth” about the middle of Jan 2008 and arrived on the island about the middle of December 2007

however, even though it is 2007 on the island it remained 2008 on “earth”

so there are not any 2nd duplicates on “earth” because they have all left “earth” by about the middle of Jan 2008 and it is still Jan 2008 forward on “earth”

when Daniel went to Ann Arbor it was present day (not 1974-1977 as it was on the island with the incident occurring in 1977) so he could read Chang’s report on the incident, that’s why Chang was right on time

i didn't mean they had to go back when locke turned the wheel, by 3 Lockes i meant Flocke, Locke flashing on the island to get instructions from Richard he had to die and dead Locke in the box, all at the same instant during December 2007

i think the Kerr Metric (i think i'm remembering correctly that the Kerr Metric formula was on the chalkboard in the Lamppost, correct me if i'm wrong) represents this mathematically

so for The Incdent it was on the the 3nd song of the record but at the same "time" it was on the 6th song on the record for Daniel in Ann Arbor wherein the 2nd song already played in the past, Dainel read all about The Incedent in the DI files

Greg, it seemed kind of odd to me that Faraday seemed to know exactly when Chang was showing up during that scene, but I chalked it up to Chang always being punctual. In regards to Dan showing up at the exact time of the Incident, it had to do (a bit lamely, I'll admit) with the fax of the new recruits. I say that because, again, he sees the info and gets on the sub within that first two days that Jack, etc., were there? Any real fault I have with any of this is that they simply could have had the events in 1977 take place over 5-6 days, not 1-3. I do also know about storytelling, and it added to the immediacy of stopping the Incident and Faraday's getting shot and his mom getting the notebook with everything needing to happen that quickly. Like Eloise's 72 hour window in 2008.

Greg, I still think Faraday's notebook is filled with notes from 1974-1977 (plus his own notes during the freighter trip, perhaps). Though, I will give you this, I never gave any thought to Ajira flashing back a month until we saw the two Lockes. (In regard to your third Locke, well, because of what Richard told him, isn't that kind of like the knot that closed the loophole? Unless MIB Locke told Richard to fix up bullet wound Locke and sound so damn omniscient about things, which then set the cycle of Locke needing to turn the wheel and die, MIB's plan might have fallen apart). Hence Locke choosing to hang himself instead of slitting his wrists or buying a gun. Foreshadowing as with the egg dolls, and this show makes me nuts with apophenia, which is when you start seeing patterns and signs in things that aren't really there, its just coincidence.

Say what you will about not getting it, but you were the first to suggest the plane went back in time. Capcom did point out the Thirty Years Later/Earlier bit, but I don't know that anyone started centering on Ajira until you brought it up.

i understand the loophole and the need for MIB Locke to tell Richard to fix up bullet wound Locke

i'm just saying there are 3 Locke's at this instant albeit 1 of them dead in a box

while in Ann Arbor, Dan would have access to reports from 1974-77 to add as notes in his journal because The Incident already happened and was included in the records, so Dan knew EXACTLY the sequence of the events since Dan left An Arbor in 2008 after reading all the reports up to then (including the new recruits (jack, kate, hurley) that showed up in 1977)

Dan landed on the island in 1977 INTETNIONALY to try to stop The Incident or at least warn them to get the heck out of there based on all the DI reports he read up until 2008

Hey, Greg, I'm agtreeing with you. There were three Lockes, indeed. My point was that one of them was the knot that closed the loophole. It was at this exact moment, the three Lockes, that MIB knew 100% that he could/would kill Jacob.

And yes, Dan could easily have been in AA in 2007--in freighter time--though I have to wonder if the DI continued to work out of Ann Arbor. More than a few people have hoped for an Ann Arbor flashback, hopefully this would clear up some of Faraday's history. I still am curious as to where Mittelos figures into this, did it merge in some way with the old DI?

Also, and again I bring up the quickness of the whole Faraday episode, he only mentions the fax of the new recruits. If he had added a few bits of info, like what you mention, notes he found re: the Incident and that exact date. Even if the report mentions J, K, & H, there should have been more that Faraday should have mentioned. An actual clue that Faraday had certain notes is that he also seemed to be flipping backwards through the journal, as if he started it in the 2000s and kept writing in it in the 70s. He does that when looking for the Orchid and with the Desmond/Constant note, but several other times, as well. I mostly read your comment wrong, Greg, but in, say, 2007, I don't know that notes on The Incident would include the exact time Chang showed up to the Orchid that day. The rest makes perfect sense, though.

Anyone else? Do you think the DI still had an Ann Arbor base of operations in 2007? What of Mittelos in Portland?

If the DI monitored and recorded all of their scientific activities, as all respectable scientists should, they should/could have had some record of what happened, to the best of their knowledge and ablility, at the Incident site. And it's conceivable that Dan could somehow get ahold of that info. Perhaps even via accounts and info that the Others, i.e. Eloise and Wid, kept track of since they were on the island when it happened. ???

I've been wondering if perhaps Mittlos was set up by Widmore's money. Just because he got booted off the island, it doesn't mean that he lost touch, or alliances, with the natives on the island. Now that we know that Wid was actually a part of the islanders' group, a lot of our earlier questions about where/how the Others got their financial resources could be answered. Early on we thought that they just stole it from the DI after the Purge. But now that we know that Wid was on their side, the answer could simply be that a lot of the wealth that he acquired off-island went to supporting the Others' pursuits in protecting the island. Especially if Widmore intended to return, which it seemed was his ultimate desire, if not merely to find it. Altho, I don't understand why he couldn't find it if Eloise knew exactly how to tell the O6ers to get there, albeit via a plane flying over certain coordinates just right. And he obviously had off-island contact with her as we saw at the hospital.

Dangitt, why does every possibility we come up with have to have a million variables attached to it?! :-(

Now that I mention flying over the coordinates, Jack really did have the right idea about taking random flights over the area! For once his instincts were correct. :-o

I was just going to suggest that maybe we could find out if Eloise filled in some of the information in Dan's notebook that she gave to him, by comparing some of the handwriting, but then I remembered that even her inscription in the front has ben screencapped and shown to be different in two separate instances. So forget about that. :-p

Here's a whackadoo idea. Let's assume that Ajira 316 traveled back in time a month or two. That implies the Island is slightly behind the rest of the world. Is it possible that the scientists in Ann Arbor detected the effects of the Incident before it happened on the Island?

Greg and Capcom: I believe the Kerr Metric is mentioned in Daniel's journal as well as the Chang video. In my opinion, it's sci-fi shorthand for wormhole, much like the Casimir effect. Stationary or "Swarzchild" black holes taper to a singularity that's a point. When the singularity from one Swarzchild black hole touches another in hyperspace, the singularities annhilate each other, briefly creating a wormhole. To be traversable, such wormholes must be stabilized by negative energy, like that at work in the Casimir effect.

But rotating or "Kerr" black holes have a singularity that's ring shaped due to conservation of angular momentum. Kerr black holes also have two event horizons -- inner and outer. Mathematical models predict that between the inner event horizon and the ring singularity is a region where there exist escape routes to other points in spacetime or even alternate realities. In this way, a Kerr black hole can serve as a wormhole, too. I think getting to the Island requires passage through a similarly warped region of spacetime, which is why deviating from the proper trajectory creates time distortion.

MikeNY: Great to see you, my friend -- please do stop by again. For those unfamiliar, Mike is author of one of the all-time great theories, Lost on Earth's Mirror Matter Moon.

Oh wow Big, you mean like the way that Regina detected the rocket hitting the island before it got to Dan? Neat thought.

GT, as per your idea of Eloise and Widmore seeking the island, that old generalization just occured to me about how women ask for directions, and men never do. But I won't mention it. Oops, heheh. :o)

I agree Big, and wasn't a Kerr diagram or equation on Dan's chalkboard as well? It seems that TPTB are making a cocktail of timetravel hints for us: a little Casimir effect, some Kerr ergosphere, mixed with a Schwarzschild's very small black hole (Chang's pinhole?), and shake with ice (FDW?) for some wormhole time travel.

Oh, THAT MikeNY! I love that theory. Which reminds me, I have to check for updates on his MMM site, I haven't since the finale. :-o

sorry, i got my blackboards with the Kerr Metric mixed up, it WAS on Daniel's blackboard instead of the one in the Lamp Post

i finally got around to looking at the Wired Magazine shown on the show, in the User's Guide To Time Travel article it mentions using a high energy electromagnetic field to compress a Kerr Ring to create black holes for use in time travel

this quote is kinda interesting, makes me think of Ben’s statement that when you move the wheel you can’t return

“The Kerr Ring is a one-way ticket. The black hole’s gravity is so great that, once you step through it, you won’t be able to return.”

I like the idea of the DI work being archived, and I didn't really buy into the "new" DI because it was an ARG, one that floundered into Ajira. I think this was intentional, as all ARGs and Con videos mean something, as we would soon find both the DI in 77 and Ajira in 07, so the best thing to do was show one ARG just stop, presumably to show us what happened after Juliet detonated Jughead. But, no, the DI booth in San Diego last summer was just show. I really do believe that Mittelos had funding, I tend to agree with Capcom thinking Widmore, now that we know his relationship to Alpert and Ethan. But I'm also throwing out the idea that the remains of the DI, post-Purge, were swallowed up by Mittelos. Big has a great point about the Island being in the past, and this would fit with the lead time the scientists and Faraday would need to get there. It seems as if the vortex is off the coast of Portland, which would have allowed them quicker travel time via sub, and that's why I had the idea that, if DI knew of the Portland portal, it made sense that Mittelos had the DI info, though at some point Widmore was involved with both groups, as he was banished after the Purge. I suppose Mittelos was really only around for the anagram and to try and recruit Locke & Juliet to the Island. Still think the vortex is outside of Portland, though.

That sounds like a great article GT, is it posted online somewhere? Maybe I'll check to see if it's available archived at the Wired website today. Can you give us a year and month, or volume/issue number? Tx! :-D

Wayne, I too would think that once the Others got some substantial funds, that they could buy up some of the DI facilities, resources, etc.

I believe this article by Dr. Michio Kaku is the one referenced by Greg Tramel. At the very end, Dr. Kaku describes how to artificially create a Kerr black hole by using electromagnetic fields to compress matter equivalent to Jupiter's mass into a ring roughly five feet in diameter.

I like the parallel between the one-way trip through a Kerr ring and Ben not being able to return after turning the Wheel. But didn't Darlton suggest at some point that Ben's predicament had to do with the rules of the Island, rather than any physical law? I think that's partly why he had to visit Smokey.

Yes, that does sound a lot like why Ben would say that. At this point it's still difficult to tell if Ben was speaking literally or figuratively, e.g., what you said about meeting up with Smokey. Maybe you just "can't" come back, unless you want to go through a grueling life threatening judgement that you'll probably lose at 99% odds.

speaking of time being off (a couple of moth or sometimes maybe years) on the island in relation to the rest of earth, did we ever get a good explanation of why dr bill on the freighter washed up on the island dead but when daniel called the freighter dr ray was still alive?

Don't forget our buddy Faraday. :o) And I suppose Skinner (as named in the Swan film), but he's psych-science.

If you're not just going by outright names mentioned, Schwarzschild might be in the mix connected to Kerr. Chang also mentioned other "ologies" and "isms" of study in the Swan film, didn't he? And then we have to check the blast door map for more mentions as well.

My question about Doc Ray is, why did his facial scar go back to being freshly open and stitched, even though he still had the recent neck gash? It was like his neck was in one timezone, and his cheek was in another, with the rest of his body altogether else. :-B

LOL GT, for sure, it would not be good to find the MIB ending up being a sort of deus ex machina for many mystery parts of the story!

Yes, I guess that we will have to file Doc Ray in with the rest of the file holding the unexlained anomalies. :-(

Way back when (season 4 seem SO far away right now for some reason!) there was the theory that there is some type of invisible magnetic field around the island, that you could see through. I always liked that one. This was especially thought after Faraday made that comment about how the light doesn't scatter quite right on the island.

I think that Mittelos Bioscience was just a front company for the Others and doesn't actually exist.

As for the doc's facial scar, I looked into that last season, and my conclusion was that the body had been floating in the water for a while. The skin decayed to the point where the stitches came loose. If you look at the picture at http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/lostpedia/images/e/eb/DeadRay.jpg, look at how much the cut on the neck no longer looks fresh. So I don't know how long it would take a body floating in salt water to have that kind of degradation, but that's how long I'd say his corpse went back in time.

sorry to harp on this but if Ray went back in time when he had just recently got the cut and the stitches on his face wouldn't when LaFleur & Company flashed back to 1974 they would be their younger 1974 self

that seems to change the whole notion of time travel on lost which i interpret as even if they go back or forward in time they are still in their present, their age doesn’t change

so why would Ray go back to a younger self (before his facial wound had heeled and the stitches had been removed) when he time traveled?

i can’t quite wrap by brain around how they are going to get away from parallel universes when it comes to Lafluer, Jack & Company being on the big island in 1977 and at the same time Sun & Frank are on the big island in 2007

Heheh, I get what you mean about Doc Ray, GT. It's always bugged me too. It's maybe either a production goof, or it's so complicated that it will not, and cannot, ever be explained by the show. :-p

Perhaps it's the going through barrier outside the "safe" coordinates, that twists time around somehow, that allowed the facial wound to go to its previous restitched state. I'm pretty sure that he only had a healed scar on his face on the freighter.

Way back when I was wondering if the island's barrier was a mobius loop, I was thinking that maybe the 305 coordinate was the flat part of the loop, and if you didn't enter/leave at that section, you get stuck going around in the loop perpetually, until you managed to hit the 305 right and slide through, and if that happens it really messes you up time-wise. That was one way that I was thinking then, that the history of Doc's cuts could get mixed up like that. ?????

Don't forget though, that they have fessed-up to a few goofs: Paulo's misdated newspaper, the phony info on Bentham's obit that had nothing to do with Locke (man from NY? teenaged son?), Charlotte's age not adding up, and something else that escapes my fuzzy memory today. :-o

P.S. my moebius loop barrier was also my theory at the time for why Des could not sail away from the island, i.e., he just kept going round and round till he fell back in. I'd still like to get some kind of reason for that happening from TPTB.

i'm thinking (at least today, could easily change by tomorrow) the island and the water & sky around it is another place not of this earth and it is not that easy to find the wormhole from the island to earth unless you know the exact coordinate or use the FDW to transport yourself from the island to earth

that is why Des would just go in circles

i’m glad TPTB fessed up to messing up the Bentham obituary, that was a big faux pas since it included a date

many “variables” can be chalked up to production errors but things like the changing pictures AND frames have to be intentional and mean something especially since the camera stopped on them for a bit

I think a few of the "errors" might have been red herrings, getting us to think of there being an alternate reality. I hope this really is not the case, but for the Island existing outside of spacetime.

Capcom, I'm wondering if some of the continuity errors have to do with changes in the past, a perfect example being when Faraday is nicked in the shoulder and then asks Jack if, when they first met, did he see a scar on his shoulder? Greg brought up the turntable in the Swan, and one that really stands out is Juliet having the Petulia Clark song in a Talking Heads jewel box. Some of these are likely errors, something that one might not have expected to see on screen perhaps (like having a Pacific Bell pay phone while a scene is set in Wash DC, its a case where maybe that part of the pay phone wasn't supposed to get that much show, and this is not refering to LOST, just an example.)

Back to Faraday not having a scar, could Dr. Ray have been part of some time conundrum, he was healing on the sip, then we had the later time shifts, with Dr. Ray then never HAVING HAD the stitched up cut when he was thrown off the freighter in the first place. It seems as if some continuity errors are pretty much in our face (Dr. Ray, Juliet's CD) and others (the Swan turntable) are in the background, found in screencaps. Make sense? I'm not sure. Obviously Faraday was explaining to Jack that any of them could die in 1977 because it was their present, but what if some ripple effect from the Incident (or from the Ajira flashes) have been altering reality from S1 throught at least S4? (I'm making a separation from "alternate reality" and "altering reality," so aqs not to contradict myself.)

As Jon G brought up, and I wasn't really going to bring up how my dad helped recover more than a few bodies from the Chicago River some spring thaws, how clean and smooth the water makes the corpses, but the whole Dr. Ray thing wasn't subtle, it was glaring.

Aside from Regina committing suicide, there was an axe embedded in the wall and that big splash of blood where Desmond and Sayid were taken. Did the S4 DVDs stay devoid of many extras because of support of the writers' strike? Hopefully when the S5 set comes out, we'll get commentary on S4, and what went unanswered re: the freighter because of the shortened season.

Just read the EW column. If S1-S5 was indeed a corrupted timeline, I can easily see where there are subtle changes to backgrounds, as with photos, etc. I've said my pet theory is that 1977-2007 has been a loop for some, um, time now, and that (I have to amend one part now) S1-S5 is simply the most recent loop. Though I've never written it, or come across one, my one big time travel story idea is one where a guy changes the past but doesn't realize it for years, because only one small thing (or several) has changed in the new timeline. The only reason I haven't written it is because, as is, it sounds kind of boring unless an event was involved. The point is that a new timeline might only mean Penny wearing two different colored blouses in the two separate Des/Penny photos.

Just a goofy thought. Wormhole=Loophole and vice versa. Adds to why Jacob knew MIB could/would kill him, maybe the idea of his touching the 815ers was to hasten the loophole by creating the wormhole. Ah, I'm just typing at this point. Thoughts?

I am so waiting for the moment during S6 that we all collectively, in our respective timezones, shout the big OMG when we realize why the heck all these subtle differences have occurred. :-D

Oh yeah, the two different girls is Dez's picture is the other not-intended difference...at least it was told that way by TPTB a couple seasons ago. I wouldn't put it past them to also figure out how to bring a production inconsistancy back into the story by putting some meaning to it, haha. In fact I hope that they do!

Capcom, maybe they had to take the photo before Sonya Walger was part of the show, I even recall a few people saying how the girl looked like Jack's ex-wife. But in both photos, the blouse is different. Its like Greg and you were saying, even by explaining something, the producers are then dangling another carrot. I have no doubt that, as you've said, we will all "get it" at different moments (maybe throughout S6, or even over the break), because of how an image like the photo is revisited and we still get two versions.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting tired of living inside this Panopticon...

I'm pretty sure that I had read that the original picture of Penny was because they hadn't cast the actress yet to play her (maybe at that time they hadn't even decided yet if Penny was going to be a character on the show or just someone Desmond talked about). Although you if you knew you still needed to cast an actress then why bother showing a picture?But I agree with Capcom that it would be great if they could take all the production mistakes and make it seem like the meant to do it all along. :)I'm really hoping for the OMG moment during season 6 but if I don't get it I'll look to all of you in these posts to point it out :)

I just had a brainstorm based on the assumption that the ash circle kept OUT the Man in Black. The only time we don't see the circle is when Hurley encounters the Cabin on his way back from the radio tower. Hurley sees two people in the Cabin -- Formal Christian and someone else we don't know.

I think Jacob and the Man in Black were having a meeting. Jacob moved the Cabin outside the circle so that the Man in Black could enter.

Bigmouth, I like your idea of it being a meeting. Still not sure why it was seen by Hurley, and why it kept moving to be in front of him, as if he was supposed to see it. With Hurley's power of seeing ghosts, what are we to make of him seeing the cabin? Was Jacob secretly shifting the cabin around to make sure that Hurley saw it for some reason? Was he hoping to ask Hurley for help like he did with Locke? If so, Jacob won't contact Hurley again for another three years, and this time he gets a nice uninterrupted meeting with him in the taxi.

As for the cabin being moved, it explains why Locke found the ash circle the next day, but no cabin.

That is a great theory, Big, re: the cabin and the ash. Back when that sequence of events occurred, I think the producers put the focus on Hurley explaining to Jack why he went with Locke instead of the other group. Myself, I wasn't thinking about Hurley seeing ghosts back then. So, am I to assume that you think it was MIB's eye that Hurley saw? MIB aware that the one person looking in the cabin could actually see him?

Question to all: three cabins on the mural, Horace cuts down the same tree three times in Locke's dream. Was the "third cabin" the one Ilana and Bram came across? It was the only time that I recall where we saw the cabin in daylight so that there would be more specific markers around it.

Why the meet and greet? Because Keamy was coming to scorch the Island? Do Jacob and MIB grudgingly get along or was this more a trade-off of info? I love the idea, hopefully we'll get some neat thoughts from everyone.

Guys, I really like where this is going. What if Jacob wanted to show Hurley the Man in Black? This would imply that Hurley's prescient dreams (e.g., where Jin speaks English) and encounters with the dead are really Jacob communicating with him.

I'm wondering if Hurley's big moment is coming next season. So far it seems that the writers haven't had much for Hurley to do except be comic relief. They also used him as the vehicle for introducing the Numbers. But as far as his impact on the show, I'd say it hasn't happened yet. Now that they started revealing his ability to communicate with ghosts in season four (and possibly other abilities, possibly hinted at with his drawing of the Egyptian sphynx), we're being prepared for Hurley's destiny. In an interesting way, Hurley encapsulates in a single character the struggle of fate versus freewill. He had always been fighting against the fate that he believed the Numbers had for him.

I had a thought while reading the thread http://forum.thefuselage.com/showthread.php?t=114429 (and no, it didn't hurt).

The originator of the thread puts forth the theory that when we see formal Christian, it's Jacob; and when it's casual Christian, it's MiB. The interesting thing about this is that when Hurley sees the cabin with two people inside, one of them is formal Christian (i.e. Jacob, according to this guy's theory). Now we've already been talking about this scene being a meeting between Jacob and MiB, but what if the other person Hurley sees (Mr. Eyeball-in-the-window) is not MiB, but someone else? Not sure I want to go down this road, because it just makes things more complicated, but I like to keep my options open when it comes to this show.

That's for sure JG. And in the VW episode, he finally took his fate into his own hands. That was a great ep and message. I miss it when a Lost episode doesn't have an uplifting message somewhere in it like there were so many of in the first two seasons, but I guess in a show with this much moral conflict, you ain't gonna get sunshine and rainbows in every story. :-)

OK, Big. Game on. Jacob wants Hurley to see MIB, as you suggest. Jon G points out that Hurley is a combination of the free will vs. determinism tone of the show. (He admits himself to Santa Rosa, he lets himself be arrested, he finds the Numbers a curse that he cannot escape.) Playing around with that notion, and this kinda goes with what Big posited re: the Island getting all schizo, what if Jacob and MIB are working together in certain ways? Jacob moved the cabin as much to allow MIB access but to also place it, as opposed to anywhere else on the Island, RIGHT IN HURLEY'S PATH. Hurley of course would look in the window of the door, so this could be why he saw Jacob but MIB stayed purposefully out of sight to spook Hurley the best possible way, eye to eye. That's really all I have, though, as the cabin encounter is what makes Hurley go with Locke instead of Jack, well, there might be a tell in that, too. I'm back to wondering if we'll see exactly why that porch collapsed for Hurley to feel such guilt. If he never went to Santa Rosa, would he have heard the numbers through a different means?

Jon G: Yep, great thread! In fact, if you look a few comments up, you'll see one from its author dz77. And I agree -- it sure looks like Formal Christian is Jacob, while Casual Christian is the Man in Black.

Wayne: I like this idea of Jacob and the Man in Black collaborating in certain very limited ways. Could this explain the significance of Ben? Perhaps they agreed to use him as a kind of test case, the way God and the Accuser make Job the subject of their bet. Is that why Jacob never spoke to Ben -- was it all a test?

Hey. Re: Ben being a test. Ben has his little speech to Jacob about delivering all of his lists and such. For Michael to get Walt and take him off the Island--was Walt a threat to Jacob?--he had to bring back four people, we all know who they were. Hurley was on the list simply so that he could be the messenger. Pickett said that Jack wasn't even on Jacob's list, which I've always guessed to be true ever since Ben waxed on the spinal surgeon falling out of the sky.

That leaves Sawyer and Kate from the original list. These are the only two people Jacob touched as children, also the only ones (even counting Hurley and, for the hell of it, Jack) that Jacob touched prior to Flight 815 crashing on the Island.

Was Ben's tumor the test? If Jacob healed Juliet's sister, was he testing Ben's faith? Did Ben piss him off by putting man of science Jack on the list? Why would Sawyer & Kate be so important for Jacob's plan?

Thoughts, anyone? Also, adding how Hurley was the messenger on Jacob's list and was also pretty much trekking alone when he saw the cabin, are these two events somehow connected? As Jon said, I think we will get a huge reveal on Hurley in S6.

But the main thought I had was regarding Jacob's list. And was it Jacob that was so freaked out by Walt that he had Bea Klugh give that list to Michael. Free will that Michael chose to kill Ana-Lucia and Libby? It seems to me that Jacob is all about free will (another reason to be pissed at Ben, because Jack was abducted against his will, then was told he could operate only if he wanted to do so), but Jacob is also not adverse to watching a lot of people die needlessly.

One more thing, the obvious answer is that Jacob has faith that Sawyer and Kate will change, I do think that Jacob giving Sawyer the pen to finish the letter gave Sawyer something that would affect his future, that he becomes a con man only to redeem himself.

So, if and when everybody is in the same place in 2007, will Jacob be royally pissed at Kate because she was supposed to bring Aaron back to the Island and she didn't do so?

interesting comments you all everybody, i have no idea who/which is MiB and/or Jacob

i see them more as tentacles of island so yes i think sometimes Jacob & MiB meet to plan to work together and sometimes they are in opposition but they are interconnected so it may be difficult to determine where one starts and the other ends

i think the smoke monster (as the supreme being (god, golem, devil, lucifer, chose your own signifier) on the island) created them sorta like homunculi

that is why our characters get judged by the smoke monster instead of MiB and/or Jacob, killing both or either of them does not kill the island, it will grow more tentacles

could be Wayne, maybe we could say MiB follows the left had path and appeared as Claire in Kate's room (on earth) to discourage her from bringing Aaron to the island in opposition to Jacob wanting/needing Aaron to take his rightful place on the island

oh and i see Richard as the alchemist, he is not necessarily clueless but rather he just has to be slow and methodical since alchemy sometimes backfires and causes black swan events, things take time but fate AND free will often get in the way while time has a course of it's own

Now that you mention it GT, I have wished for a while that TPTB would have somehow brought in a creepy golem into the story. Some monster out of sand or island mud...there's enough mud on those rainy days. The X-Files did that in a pretty interesting way.

Maybe Smokey is TPTB's version of a golem? I just thought of that off the top of my head and gave it no serious thought, so no need to expend any energy saying that it's impossible, heheh. ;-)

1 hole (of many i'm sure, LOL) in my logic is there has been some indications that the smoke monster has not been on the isaland "forever" (or at least in earlier days we did not see it but maybe it mutated through the years)

Hey, all. In regards to the show itself (not counting flashbacks), and again, you know me with never looking it up first, the first we saw of it was when it tried to pull Locke into one of the Cerberus Vents. Jack saved him, but Locke wanted to be pulled in. In the earliest episodes, it was that roaring sound and trees falling down (the sounds were of a roller coaster cranking, I don't think we've heard that in a long time). My thoughts on the roar and the trees is that it was made very clear to separate the survivors of 815 from day/night one, what better way than to keep a large amount of people simply afraid to enter the jungle. Again, we haven't seen much more than the smoke monster (as opposed to the effects, including the flashing lights) because there are so few people left to herd or corral or whatever.

Greg, thx. The more I thought about Ben whining about the lists, the more building blocks I put down. There is other evidence re: Jacob touching Sawyer and Kate. Sawyer was touched on a very solemn day at a moment of huge decision re: his future path. Kate, on the other hand, is made to giggle when Jacob touches her on her nose, promising never to steal again. Jacob pretty much, to me at least, offers free will to Kate and determinism to Sawyer. By giving him the pen, that was a metaphor for finishing what he started.

If Sawyer and dingbat end up raising Aaron, I'd hope Sawyer has plenty of great tales to tell about Juliet. So I think Jacob may be jointly working with MIB on some part of an agenda, the duality aspect of the show, but it is Jacob who seems to be sneakier in how he plays the game. Maybe that's who Ben was talking to when he said "you changed the rules." Just a hunch, but its like MIB has a straight road with his own desired end, while Jacob sets his own game plan. What's that Einstein quote? God doesn't roll the dice. Something like that.The more I think over what we saw of Jacob, I put him more in Eloise Hawking's camp, with Widmore in MIB's.